Monday, December 19, 2011

The Distraction

We went to an award ceremony today. One of my sister-in-law's students had won an art award. At the last minute he couldn't make it, and she as his sponsor had to accept the award in his place. We're all members of the art association, and we all showed up for the ceremony including our (usually) beautifully-behaved homeschooled children. (We get compliments all the time.)

Unfortunately our middle child, 10 year-old Sunshine, is a little -- absent-minded. In the same manner that Antarctica is a tiny bit chilly. She's sitting on one side of her aunt and I'm sitting on the other side. She's still eating her dessert when it came time for her aunt to make the acceptance speech. Everybody's looking at her aunt and her except for Sunshine. She's staring down her nose at her plate as she busily finishes her dessert, paying no attention to anything around her. I can't get her attention without distracting the speaker between us.

That's when her glasses start to slide.

They fall slowly down her nose, catching in her curls and slowing down but not stopping. They fall off the tip of her nose and hang in the air, suspended only by her hair. When they reach the level of her lips and would impede her eating she finally pushes them back where they belong, barely breaking speed in her effort to finish off the banana pudding. It was one of the most amazingly, hilariously embarrassing things I've ever seen first-hand.

If anyone remembers a word of that speech I'll be surprised.

Later we stopped by Hancock Fabrics in the faint hope of finding curtain fabric that isn't way overdone. Any restrained color or print is only available in the most ostentatious of fabrics. Almost everything on the market these days is gargantuan flowers or even bigger stripes, but I found an antique map print that will look awesome in the den. Now I just need access to my sewing machine. At the current rate of progress that will happen in about, oh, six months.

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