Pandemic Jean Jacket Done!

 I should have been out walking. I should have been working on my memoir. Instead I slid into the comfort of cross stitch, a talent my dear grandmother gave me back in the 1970s.

Mr. J gave me a jean jacket for my birthday. A nice one. And then, just a week afterward, we were in lockdown.

So I went to work.

EXHIBIT A: GRITTY IS THE CENTERPIECE

I actually got permission to use this design from its creator.

It says "No Grit No Glory." The green strip just above the bottom is my name, with a snowflake. More about the Phoenix in a moment.

After I finished Gritty, I thought, "It would be really cool to make this jacket monster-themed." And that's what I did.

EXHIBIT B: RAT FINK

I'll bet some of y'all remember this hot rod mascot from the 1960s. This is an iron-on patch, and I must say they adhere better than they did in the past. Technology isn't totally a waste. To the left of Rat Fink you'll see more snowflakes. They are buttons I sewed down the front.

EXHIBIT C: PHOENIX

Iron on patches are kind of cheating, but I could never have done this amazing Phoenix on my own, on a jean jacket. I have plans to add some words above it, but other projects come first.

EXHIBIT D: MOTHMAN

I really enjoyed working on Mothman. Above him is my WVresist button I got from the Women's March on Washington and my "My Heart, My Soul, and My Grave Are In Appalachia" pin. Under the arm is a pin that says "Tax the Rich."

EXHIBIT E: MURDER HORNET AND CTHULHU

My daughter The Heir drew the murder hornet. It is straight-up embroidery. Above it is a pin featuring Otter the River God (long story), and a Jersey Fresh pin. Cthulhu is a patch. And I've never been able to spell his name without looking it up.

EXHIBIT F:  FRONT OVERALL

So this jawn has pins and more pins on it. In no particular order, Union Yes, NJEA PAC, BLACK LIVES MATTER, SEPARATE CHURCH AND STATE, and the others previously mentioned.

When my daughter The Fair was snapping these photos, we totally forgot to take a picture of the Flying Spaghetti Monster patch I sewed on the back at the top.

There's one last monster, and it's the absolute worst of all.

EXHIBIT H: HORRIBLE MONSTER

This says, and I quote, "Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, losers or lowlifes who are going to OKLAHOMA please understand you will not be treated like you have been in NEW YORK, SEATTLE, or MINNEAPOLIS. It will be a MUCH DIFFERENT SCENE."

Followed by the monster's name, the date, and #notmypresident.

Counted cross stitch and embroidery had gone by the wayside, being considered an obsolete granny-driven art form based on platitudes and pretty flowers. But a new generation has taken it up and given it a whole new direction. I'm so glad, because it never would have occurred to me to bend such a floofy hobby to novel ends.

I haven't done this one myself yet, but it's on the radar. Don't you love it?

And fuck the Smithsonian Institution too. To me this post screams "pandemic diary."

It Appears that the Constitution Is in Force

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Do you have any idea how many bored deities there are out there in their respective Heavens? Me neither.

But just imagine if we were to mount a display to honor each and every one at this dark time of the year. After all, the dark days have been with humankind for a very long time. Time out of mind to petition deities to bring back the light.

Suppose government property became egalitarian and allowed every single praise and worship team to erect a Yuletide memorial on the public lawn. Gosh, it would be as crowded as some of these crazy Christmas houses! In fact, if you start inviting the bored gods, you might have to stack displays on top of one another, just to be fair.

Where would it end?

The three of you who read "The Gods Are Bored" all the time will probably recall that, last Yule, a Christian group and a Jewish group both set up lit displays at the public library: a manger scene and a menorah that was 15 feet high.

After Yule had come and gone, I wrote an email to Snobville's mayor and to her two henchmen city councilmen. I politely asked to be notified when the permits for religious displays at the library would be issued. I said I wanted one on behalf of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (a legitimate 501.C3 nonprofit religious order). I said that a dedicated group of FSM adherents was even then crafting a giant Noodly Master out of swimming pool noodles and pasta. In my mind I pictured something like this fabulous shrine from www.deeppencil.com:

This year we have no manger scene or menorah on taxpayer-funded property.

First Amendment triumphant! Fa la la la laaaaah!

There is, of course, a Christmas tree, that universal, powerful symbol of beating back the darkness and protecting the wildlife from the harsh ravages of winter. Ramen!

You may be wondering if Snobville is now bereft of Christian influence.

Fear not, o stranger! There's a lovely Baptist church one block from the library, right on the main street. This church has a large, well-lit nativity scene that goes live on Friday nights, thanks to cute little kids willing to stand in the cold dressed like Mary and Joseph. Menorah? I haven't seen one. There are certainly Jewish people living in Snobville, but I wonder ... perhaps some of them didn't like the constitutional issues behind the big menorah, either. Truth to tell, if I was Jewish, I would have hated that thing. It was ugly!

I like to think that my email about the Noodly Master had something to do with Snobville's decision to back off displays of religious origin on public land. However, my daughter The Spare tells me she thinks that probably lots of Snobvillians complained. And hey -- ever since The Spare decided to make a film about moi, I'm taking her word for everything.

My taxes aren't lighting the nativity scene at the Baptist Church. That's how I like it.

Putting the Hollandaise in the Holidays

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Right on time for the holiday break, my computer has sprung a leak and won't hold content. So this post is being done on the fly at school, and I don't know when I'll be able to post again. Maybe from the public library/church in my borough.

Update on the First Amendment: The menorah that I thought had been taken down out of a sense of reason was, in fact, stolen in the deep recesses of the night. Police are baffled. Durrrrhhhh. A five-foot aluminum menorah? Have they checked the prices being paid for scrap metal lately?

Apparently, as predicted, many citizens of Snobville (particularly at the high school) are weighing in against the religious displays on public property. The Snobville Weekly Tattler reports that the displays were done after permits were issued to Hay-bad (not the proper spelling, this is the Jewish group, they are very conservative) and a society called Citizens for Keeping Christ in Christmas. According to our lovely mayor, such permits are legal because they can be issued to any religious group.

Promptly and efficiently, I applied for a permit on behalf of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. (I can't copy the text of the email here. School computers have so much security on them they could double for CIA.) I described the beautiful holiday display the Church would do, using suitable pasta products, a Santa hat, and a sign that reads "Seasoning Is the Reason for the Season." I linked to the FSM home page and warned that failure to issue this nonprofit organization a permit would be deemed religious discrimination.

Readers, you know I'll do it. Given the sentiment at the high school, I'll have plenty of creative help.

Spare was the one who coined the phrase "Putting the Hollandaise in the Holidays." I think that is so beautiful! Won't that be inspirational on a waterproof sign?

To close -- for how long I don't know -- I would just like to say that I don't want to put up a Druid symbol on public land. I don't want any symbols on public land. Xmas trees are universal; to me, they don't really have a religious affiliation anymore. Even my school has one in the lobby.

Religious displays belong on religious property. Which is why you see so few for Druids and Wiccans. Where would we leave stuff? We worship in the woods.

A blessed Yule to all, especially the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a new God among us! Next winter, get ready for Spaghetti!

Her Noodly Master

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," praise and worship for deities old and new, lightly used and recycled! Waste not, want not!

Yesterday we dropped my daughter The Heir off at her new college. We could have left my daughter The Spare there too, because even though The Spare's only 14, everyone thought she was an incoming freshman. Especially the guys.

The Heir loaded our car with all kinds of stuff, her California Raisin collection, her musical saw, her pet rock, her pimple cream, on and on. And when we got there, she had no pillow for her bed. It had taken us 90 minutes to drive the 36 miles to her college, so we decided it was easier to go pick up a pillow at Target than run home and get hers. (Which proved true, as it also took 90 minutes to drive home. Could have walked faster.)

In the time it took Mr. Johnson and myself to go to Target for a pillow, The Heir did a little exploring of her new environment. She was thrilled to find, scrawled on a dumpster next to her butt-ugly dormitory, a likeness of the Noodly Master ... the Great Flying Spaghetti Monster!

As I hugged The Heir farewell, we both took solace in knowing that a fabulous deity will be watching her from the side of a dumpster. The Heir has Pastafarian leanings. It won't take much persuasion for her to embrace the FSM in a very serious way. Thank goodness for that, because she's heard enough non-noodly dogma this summer to gag a goat.