The Seat Of Power

Lindsay and I recovered the dining room chair seats.

We settled on a nice bumpy leather this time, tired as we are of trying to remove/keep spills off the old fabric covers.  We have had these chairs only about as long as we have had Lindsay (11 years), but this is already the 5th incarnation of their seats. 

I casually mentioned this to the man who measured out the new covering for us.  Without any prompting, he launched into a history of his family's dining room furniture, and its many maintenance challenges.  Mike, as it turns out, is the oldest of five children, whose mother recovered their dining room chair seats so often that he swore she could do it in her sleep.  It was his job to pull out the old staples each time, so his memories of the process are both clear and deeply etched.  I asked him what kind of dining room chairs he has now:  Molded plastic bar stools.  Lad seems to have retained the lessons of his youth.

Later that same day I was on the phone with a friend and mentioned our chair seat odyssey.  "Oh my gosh!" she said, "I'm doing that same project myself in a couple of days.  My mother visited last week and daintily spread a tea towel over the dining room chair seat before she would sit down." 

Seems to me that both mothers and dining chairs are universal: both purpose-driven, and both prone to getting smeared with gravy. 

I bet every single one of us has at least one memory of the dining room furniture of our youth, and the maintenance thereof.  Even Phillip, who can't remember my middle name, can tell you that the seats used to be blue when he was a kid, until they changed to green, and for some reason he never liked them as well after that.  I happen to know that in reality, the chair seats changed color the same year Phillip's parents divorced, and it was actually the family dining experience that he no longer liked as well.  Funny the way things are.

While we reupholstered, Lindsay and I had a conversation about why chair seats even matter in the first place.  I explained to her that there have been studies which show that children who regularly have dinner with their families get better grades, are healthier and happier than kids who don't.  If sitting down together has that much impact, the room we do it in deserves our special attention every now and then.

What I didn't tell her is that the memories she and her brother form of our daily bread and the time we spend together eating it are as important to me as their first days of school, our family vacations, or any other cherished thing.  Anybody who has had the great blessing of a home in which to live, and a dedicated space within it to share meals can tell you:  The true seat of power is the Dining Room Chair.
 

Kilt By Association

Of the three Scott daughters and the two Scott daughters-in-law in my family, I am the only one who can sew.  This is a dubious distinction, since it means that the care and keeping of the kilts worn by our clan has fallen exclusively to me.  I'm not complaining; I love Scottish clothing, and everything about the way it's made.  I count myself as one of the keepers of my family history, and this is the way I do it.  Some people archive photographs, some trace geneology.  I look after the tartan.

I am fortunate to have learnt at the knee of some pretty fine tailors in my time.  Some of them taught me to bag vest linings, One taught me to tie a ballet tutu (highly guarded trade secret: don't ask), from one I learned the gentle art of kiltmaking, and still another taught me to shorten a man's sportcoat sleeve in ten minutes or less.  Be advised that this last is more about being swift with the needle than any clever tailoring tricks.

These skills, I felt confident, should have prepared me for altering the sleeves on my brother David's gorgeous new kilt jacket.  For the uninitiated, a kilt jacket is very special, in that its proportions are specifically designed to follow the rules of kilt-wearing; namely that it has to be the perfect length in relation to the length of the kilt's pleat stitches.  Too short and the lad wearing it looks like a bullfighter, too long and he's a Catholic school girl.  David procured his stunning specimen in Scotland last year, where his tailor fitted it to his kilt with precision.  The tailor was too behind on work though, to perform any sleeve magic before David had to go back to the U.S.  Knowing what shipping a jacket from the UK would cost should he leave it for further work, and knowing that his sister loves him, David brought his jacket home to me.

Here is the first thing that happens when you have to shorten a kilt sleeve (okay, second; the first was a medicinal belt of Single-Malt to put me in the proper spirit):  You gut the thing.
 

Here's the poor wee beastie with all 8 of its gauntlet cuff seams torn asunder.  If you are at all clever, this process will cure you from any further interest in kilt-jacket-cuff-gutting.  Nasty piece of work, that.

The next part is simple, but not easy:  You have to cut into the perfect Harris Tweed fabric with your long shiny shears.  You need both confidence and fortitude.  Having cut open a few hundred sweater steeks is good preparation for this moment.  So, in my case, was a second draught of Single-Malt.  I needed it for spine-stiffening purposes.

Here's the poor wee beastie with all 8 of its gauntlet cuff seams torn asunder.  If you are at all clever, this process will cure you from any further interest in kilt-jacket-cuff-gutting.  Nasty piece of work, that.

The next part is simple, but not easy:  You have to cut into the perfect Harris Tweed fabric with your long shiny shears.  You need both confidence and fortitude.  Having cut open a few hundred sweater steeks is good preparation for this moment.  So, in my case, was a second draught of Single-Malt.  I needed it for spine-stiffening purposes.

This is a picture of the Tailoring Gods laughing at me to the point of Snot Bubbles.  My hand, in this picture, is neatly inserted into a specially-finished slot in the kilt jacket lining.  Prior observation of this slot's existence would have saved me opening and closing ALL 8 SEAMS.  That's right, Gentle Readers: The brilliant Scottish tailor (factory seamstress, probably) who built this jacket had the cleverness to recognise that its gauntlet cuff faced a high probability of alteration.  He/She cunningly included this inspired lining device, in order to save me and my ilk from preforming the very surgery that I had just done.  I cannot believe the sexiness of this lining slot.  I have seen many things that tailors do in order to save (and yes, torture) their brethren, and this one takes the shortbread.  If only I had SEEN IT in time. 

I'm blaming the Single-Malt.  Everybody knows drunks can't sew.

Looks pretty yar, if I do say it though.  Calls for a congratulatory dram, I think.

Full-Time Job

Would you believe that being a Mom was a full-time job this week?  Of course you would.  I mentioned earlier that this was the last week of school for Lindsay, Campbell. and Phillip.  What I didn't tell you was that Lindsay was graduating the from the fifth grade, and commemorating the move from elementary school to middle school.  Both she and I have been a bit in denial about it.  Transitions are always difficult, but the big ones can be more than we expect.

So this week I decided that whatever needed doing, I would be the mom on hand, ready for action, and that's exactly what I did.  I attended the awards assembly.  I chaperoned the field trip.  I went to the band concert.  I took Lindsay and her special dear friend, Colin out for a special graduation dinner at the restaurant of their choice (along with both kids' families).  I attended graduation.  I came to the talent show assembly, and sat through all the acts, even though mine was the only kid I really wanted to see.  And then I went home, drank a cup of coffee, told myself that it was a good job well done.  And then I sobbed my ever-lovin' eyes out.  Snot bubbles and all.

See, this is the kid I have in mind every time I mention the Smallies:

But this is the way things really are:

Lindsay is the 3rd from the left, clarinet employed (note arrangement of Birkenstock-clad feet for maximum musical efficiency).

Here are Lindsay and Colin, dressed to the teeth and sporting Lobster bibs.  I was thinking that the blackmail opportunity was too good to pass up - putting bibs on fifth-graders.  But it turned out that it also saved their swell outfits from death by drawn butter.  They elected to split a pile of crab legs.  Not much in the world cuter than that:

When you are result-oriented, it's hard to remember that the human being in front of you is the proof of your hard work.  You parents know what I mean.  Here's what I really accomplished this week:

Fifth grade, elementary school, and all that comes with it:  Done and Done.

I'm sure that I could have accomplished more knitting, but at what cost?  Sometimes the thing in front of you is what really matters.  Blink an eye and you'll miss it.

Thank you God, for making me available to do my REAL job this week.  And thank you, Gentle Readers, for allowing me a self-indulgent post about it.

Next week:  Camping in the back yard, Spinning with a dear friend, and teaching in Snohomish.  Same thing we do every day, my friends:  Try to Take Over the World.