Hey kiddies. If I've seemed a smidge derelict in my blogging duties, blame it on Hansel & Gretel. This past weekend was WHS Alumni Weekend and this year happens to be my 15th alumni year. We had to put a float in the alum parade (parade theme :fairy tales or nursery rhymes). Well, I suppose we didn't **HAVE** to do something for the parade (class of 1985 did absolutely nada for alumni this year.. . .losers) but a small contingent of us felt like we oughtta. A small contingent from a small class...I'm not gonna name names or point fingers (BUT YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!*) but only about 1/6 of our class worked on this thing. It's a good thing we had Phil, who is in the carpentry/construction trade. He pretty much built the candy house on his own. We pitched in on painting & embellishments & such, but he did all the structural work. He was amazing. Liz was the major organizing force (also amazing...and slightly annoying in a way I can't quite articulate). And my assignment was Hansel & Gretel. Liz had talked about using a projector to blow up an image of H&G, then trace that projected image onto big paper, paste the big paper onto cardboard...basically to make cardboard cutout Hansel & Gretel. I'm sure I am partly influenced by the 3D mania that is monopolizing the cinemas these days, but this cardboard cut-out notion struck me as a little lame-ish and shabby. But, instead of pointing at Liz and yelling "LAAAAAME! SHABBY!!!" I just said "Well, can't we do something more 3D, like with papier mache?" To which Liz retorted , "Can you make 2 people out of papier mache?" Ohhhh SNAP. This is why it doesn't pay to contribute to the conversation. And that is how Hansel and Gretel became solely my bailiwick. (not the best verbage that, but bailiwick is a f-ing kickarse word and I was suddenly very compelled to bust it out there)



So I have spent the 1st half of June making papier mache people and then doing general float work on Tues & Thurs nights. Ok, well the people aren't entirely papier mache (only head, arms & legs) if I did 100% papier mache, I suspect I'd still be waiting for that shit to dry. To be utterly precise, Hansel and Gretel were: papier mache, paint, chicken wire, wood, newspapers, brown & white gingham patterned cotton, cheap Family Dollar kiddie shoes spray painted brown, ribbon, brown dyed mop heads, one of my old white tees, Crazy glue, Hot glue, spray adhesive, zip ties and Mighty Putty (not necessarily in that order). I say "were", because a few of us (me, Phil, and Liz...natch) gathered this past Monday night to demolish the float and I put H& G in the cardboard burn pile. My Dad was appalled that I sent them off to their doom. But, like I sez to him, I sez -- I got footage for all posterity of my crafting triumph, I can keep that. What the hell would I do with two 3ft high characters? A little too elaborate to repurpose as doorstops, thems.



So yeah, not only did I shoot a quickie vid of H&G in the garage-workshop that birthed them (just minutes after I'd finished up) , I also have about 4 minutes of group float work (the Fri night before the parade) and also I had my niece film the whole alumni parade (approx 19minutes...seems like 5 min of that being clowns on mini wheelie ATVs) So if you wanna see any of that, lemme know. Say the words and I will post that shit (otherwise, I'll not waste time uploading)

In the afternoon, our class had a small, chillaxed, boozy BBQ, which I popped into after my apres-parade nap. That was nice. And then that night, the all-alumni party at the Mountain. That was marvy. I had the good sense to *not* bring my flip cam to that ( obviously a pretty ginormo potential for disaster in that idea) There were a few, uhhh, snafus. I got in a minor tiff with my sis (but it was minor. . and we made up by the end of the night) I had an embarrassing mudbutt episode in the constantly packed ladies room (but just the one episode...and I camped out in that damn stall, courtesy-flushing away until there came--quite miraculously--a 3 second lull in traffic. Like, I figure it was too minor a crisis for GOD to have intervened, but perhaps a miracle granting apprentice of some sort was at work there. Is there a patron saint of drunken diarrhea, I wonder??) Anyways, overall, it was a hell of a lotta fun. I'm already stoked for next year!! But if my sister asks me to be her DD (will be her 20th year ) then, I'm sorry...feck that...I will be scraping together a taxi fund.

* this parenthetical scorn is futile... as none of my h.s. classmates read this blog. Unless they psychically intuited its existence, that all caps hint of disapproval is totally in vain