I attended a wedding

What I saw:  my cousin's wedding at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Jefferson City, Missouri. 

What I'm reading #airport pic.twitter.com/dfbJNr7kfS

— Hamsteria d'Relish (@hamsterRelish) May 26, 2016

What I wore: black Fluevog stranger-friendly heels, new blue abstract-patterned Brooks Brothers dress that I may, on reflection, have purchased in a size too large, pantyhose  that makes my pale legs look so pale they glow in the dark, gold jewelry given to me by the Bacon Provider and my mother, eye-makeup, and, briefly, lipstick.

What I did beforehand: drove to Jeff City in a rented Cadillac, with my brothers first complaining that it smelled like cigarettes (it did), then navigating with only occasional input from technology, and everywhere urging me to back into parking spaces or to go faster.

Who went with me: my brothers and a hundred others.

How I got invited: I received a "Save the Date" card last summer, and an invitation in the mail this winter. In the End Times, will wedding invitations be the last items sent via U.S. Mail? 

Why I went: I think my mother would have wanted us to go.

Where I sat: in the third row of pews, on the bride's side.

Things that were sad: my mother would have been there, in a flowy floral dress or maybe a navy skirt and a crisp white blouse with interesting buttons and a long jacket with just enough unusual silver jewelry (but never too much) showing off the gleam of her now snowy-white hair. She died in 2004.

Things that were funny: a six-year old relative, whose mom was the bride, did his part in the procession, holding a baby by the hand and leading her down the aisle in her peach tulle skirt only to fall deeply asleep himself in the pew ahead of us, and there he remained, silent and still, until roused to leave during the recessional organ music, Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring."

Things that were not funny: one of the readings during the wedding mass was from the Letter to the Ephesians, and I laughed audibly when the brides aunties, recruited to go to the podium, read the words, "Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord."  I am one of those radical feminists that thinks women are actually people. What can I say?

What it is: I mean. What even is a wedding? Now we have gay marriage in America, so everyone can make an expensive, bad life choice. 

Who should see it: go to your cousins' weddings, people. Read books about feminism on the plane on the way there, and essays about the failure of the American Peace Movement on the way home. 

What I saw on the way home: the air above America was a great, green-gray spill, the color of industrial waste, flecked with the white foam of real clouds.

Jolly Roger Quilt, Part 1

The last time I made a baby quilt, I ended up playing around with 2" squares. This is as small a piece of fabric I would ever have imagined being willing to work with, but I found myself very pleased with the texture of the finished result.

Somewhere along the way, I started thinking about being able to represent an image with squares, rather than just a pattern. Soon enough I had traced a Jolly Roger (pirate flag) on to graph paper and had executed the grinning skull in mostly black and mostly white fabric.
I worked horizontally, from the bottom up, but certainly could have worked in vertical strips, too. Because I was assembling several rows at once, I tried to label the left-most square of any row (using masking tape and a pen); I also tried to keep written track of which squares had been made and which squares had been joined.

Originally I had thought I would make a choice to go black or white with any given square, just to see if that skull face would show up, but when I sat down I found it was fun and easy to make part-white-part-black squares of any configuration I needed (so much for not sewing with pieces smaller than 2" by 2").  I put tape on my cutting square to create a 2" by 2" window for composing the squares.
More than once I got bogged down with the pattern, and I even had to tear out two rows when I discovered two errors.
The classic Jolly Roger has a pair of crossed bones below the skull, but I also found other designs, including swords, a single bone, words, and even a heart.
I am not finished with this project, but when I posted pictures of the work in progress, my cousin asked for the plan.