Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Blinky Bugs.

Last weekend (or maybe the weekend before that? Time runs together a bit when you don't have a job) I was at Oktoberfest* with Evie and Rene and when I was leaving Evie presented me with a bag and told me that I was going to help her with the decorations for hallowe'en party that she was going to have for the kid.
In the bag was:

Evidently, because I made Paper flower boutonnières for the wedding I am now qualified to make cut-outs of ghosties and hang paper bats for a four-year-old's party.
After I had made sure that I didn't have to do this in the midst of fifteen four-year-olds I was fine with it.. not that I had a choice. Also, this way I could get rid of some of those thousands of LED's and dying batteries that I have post-wedding.

It helps if saturday morning is cold and rainy, and you have someone to bring you things that you discover you need halfway through something complicated (ie. needs both your hands) so that you can make bugs while you're all snug in bed.


Basically the bugs are two LEDs and a coin battery, with 'antennae' made from piano wire to complete the circuit. After you put those together you tart them up with pipecleaners, feathers and pompoms. 

Secretly we both had a lot of fun, and maybe one of these days we'll stop finding little bits of piano wire and tape in our bed... and the bugs turned out fine though in retrospect the one with six eyes was pushing it a bit.



* About Oktoberfest.. Does it seem pointless to anyone else? You wait in a queue to get in (unless you're like me and join a friend who has been waiting in a queue just as she gets to the front - that wasn't luck), then you wait in a queue to get beer, then you wait in a queue to get food, then you have to search for a place to get out of the way of all the frat boys and girls who can't hold their beer (their beer mind you!) and to add insult to injury, you have to do this all the while having your ears assaulted with the most ghastly polka music...

Monday, October 18, 2010

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Ah, the Sweet Sound of Lego!

So we have finally started to use at least some of the wedding loot:

Credit: Ashita, Binoy, Diana, Evie, Gordon, Malika, Radhika, Raunak, Rene, Romit, Ryan, Tomas.

So all this started out as one very happy lego heap... 

The plan is to clad our very boring Ikea tv-table with lego. TV tables are very blah.. or really really expensive. And yes, I'm aware of the irony in that last sentence..
So we began:


At some point we realized that it was going to be more complicated than we thought... and we had to do some work to figure out exactly how many rows we needed as well as where we needed a row of flatties to bring the walls up to the right height for the top surface.
Enter the Chicken of Precise Measurements:


Pretty self-explanatory I should think. Also made use of some of the extra fatties. (Only thinnies went into the making of this tv table)
So finally what we ended up with:


And that was it.. all that Lego and we got about one fourth of the table done!
But it was fun.
Tomas and Binoy were both around so they helped. Actually they did most of the work, until they got distracted by making flags of various countries with the fatties we weren't using:

Credit: Binoy, Rick, Tomas

Things we learned:
 1) If you build Lego furniture after having drunk too much submerged beer, you end up with shelves that are too small for their spaces, and have to do it all over again.
2) But since it is lego, you can take it all apart and do it again - and it's still fun.

Oh, and every one who gave us Lego will have their initial (yes only one)  in one-ies somewhere.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Lanterns!


What lanterns look like after a wedding.


Imported labour.



Pre-Guests, earning that invitation!


And after that someone has to un-tangle the fishing line, and un-tape the duct tape..


Next step - Giving away ninety-five chinese lanterns!







Thursday, October 7, 2010

Experiment: Does Beer Keep Underwater?

Everyone was so helpful during the pre-wedding dinner, they took all the food and the drink and all the other stuff that you can't have a meal for fifty five people without, upstairs.
And then they brought it all back down afterwards...
...and no one told me that the ice boxes were not empty.

What I learned: Caps on beer bottles rust after being submerged for three weeks.


Also, the paper labels on the tops of the Stellas get kind of slimy.

The good news is that the beer tastes fine... as long as you pour it into a glass.




Aftermath of a Wedding



The Rodrigues Left Luggage Service 



Somewhere in there is a bedroom...