saints and scabs

Tuesday was my day off.... from work.  The one where they pay me.   This Tuesday, with my granddaughter attempting to play with the pins, scissors, anything else she could impale herself with, I began a sewing project to help out my neighbor. She had to make a Saint. Yup, Saint….as in Patrick, Francis and Nick. She chose Saint Lucy. Good thing she had a statue of St. Lucy because I personally had never heard of her and honestly, if there was no St. Ethel to go along with her it hardly seemed relevant at all. She had two days for this task although I rather suspect she had sat on the whole ’let’s build a saint’ project far longer. The saints were going to be part of a holiday celebration to impress the holy higher ups. St. Lucy had traditional blue and white robes that looked very much like the ones worn by the manger residents that hung out under my Christmas tree. She carried palm and a tray. The tray held her…. eyes. I never thought to question my neighbor why she chose a saint who carried her eyes in a tray, but I suppose as saints go, they must have had to give up something pretty important to become a saint in the first place. The saint on a stick had to be of normal height. Luckily our St Lucy was an Italian woman who stood maybe five feet. We could use a shorter stick than most.

While I gathered the fabric, eyes and other saint building necessities my neighbor set out to find something to use as a head. It was rather tempting to use the skulls my house is currently adorned with, being Halloween week and all. We opted for Styrofoam. I found canvas work gloves in the basement that need to ‘tan’ up a bit, so I made a pot of strong tea and laid the gloves in them overnight to dye them. (very ‘green’ don’t ya think?) I also left a note for my husband just in case he poured himself a cup of tea without noticing the floating gloves. (it could happen, trust me!) I sewed and stuffed, I glued and pinned and St. Lucy began to take shape. It felt a little sacrilegious as I impaled her with the stick that would serve as her lower half and feet. I asked her forgiveness and them jammed that sucker as far up into the foam body as it could possibly go. Lucy was looking good, headless of course, but her robes were well pleated and adorned with gold piping. The tea infused work gloves left a little too long in the Orange Pekoe and now a little too tan were dry, stuffed and attached. Her right hand held the palm which we had to substitute with some kind of ivy since craft stores just don’t carry fake palm. Her left hand carried the eye tray which was from my granddaughter’s Barbie tea set.   Only something didn’t look right. I had dyed two right hand gloves. Yup, Lucy had two right hands. (hey look, her eyes were in a tray ya know, she could certainly deal with two right hands) I stitched the glove on in a way that hid the fact that Lucy was deformed and so instead of having two right hands, she had one hand with no thumb.  She looked like a muppet.  Who said life is fair? 

My neighbor came with the Styrofoam head, complete with queen size panty hose to give her a skin tone color that did not match her two right hands at all, but at least she wasn’t foam white. A perfect nose protruded out from behind the stocking and her lips were pinned on. Lucy was seriously sporting her ‘hooker red’ lipstick. She had eyes which I had thought were already glued into the Barbie plate but I guess being a saint she was allowed two sets. One to see, and one as an offering or something. Her hair was the remainder of the pantyhose knotted atop her head in a Snooki-do and then cut in strips down the sides. Lucy was looking good. Sort of. Maybe. Ok not so much, but two days to make a life size saint is pushing the envelope…I’d like to see them do that on Project Runway. Lucy done and safely packed away in my neighbors car for the ride to the church, I turned my attentions to the rest of my fun filled day.

It was time to take the dog to the vet to get his allergy shots. The $150 allergy shots that last, at best, two weeks. But in those two weeks his stench ebbs a bit and it makes the cost a little more palatable. My dog, the free adopted mutt that I have had for the past 8 years, has something called doggy seborrhea dermatitis. Basically, dry skin. Having said that, on you and me a nice slathering of Oil of Olay would do the trick, on Stinky, not so much. This trip he was getting a bath, his ears cleaned, a cortisone shot and his nails clipped. I left to pick him up some five hours after being dropped off. I left with a bag of antibiotics for some fungal infection he got from the dermatitis, fish oil tablets he has to take twice a day to keep his skin supple, an astronomical bill and a dog that still stunk….maybe worse. Oh and they shaved him where a dog just shouldn’t be shaved. He looked like he had just escaped from Three Mile Island‘s nuclear site. If someone broke into my house now they would feel so bad for this dog they would crawl back out the window just not to get him in any trouble. I take one pill a day, two if you count the  'over 45'  one-a-day vitamins I take. And I forget. This dog has six pills a day, and I'm the one that has to remember to trick him into taking them. Lord knows how I am gonna do this….maybe I should just pray to Saint Lucy.  She owes me!