Airplane Tetherball

My sister, Alfred, and I were very creative with the games we’d play growing up.  Often, we’d make our own version of some toy we wished we had or that our school or church had.  My post about our attempts to bungee jump is one example.  We even made our own tetherball, sort of.

Our shared bedroom had a little alcove in it with a lower-than-average ceiling.  - The alcove I wrote about in Don’t Shoot, I’m Not a Real Princess! – The ceiling was low enough that if I stood on my bed in the alcove, I could touch the ceiling.  The ceiling had a light fixture on it.  A round fixture with a round, bulbous frosted glass cover.  The frosted glass cover was held into the metal fixture by 3 screws.  The screws were evenly placed around the fixture and held the frosted glass cover in place by the pressure the bottom of the screw placed on the cover’s rim.  This meant the screws were not screwed in tight such that there was space between the screw head and the fixture rim.  This is relevant, just wait.

Alfred had a toy airplane.  A plastic, Fisher Price airplane that had little round-hole seats in it for passengers and a pilot.  The plane was rather large, probably about a foot long and a foot in wingspan.  It had wheels and coming off the nose was a long yellow plastic cord so that the plane could be pulled along.

For some reason, we decided this large, heavy, plastic airplane would make a great tetherball.  So we took that yellow pull-cord and tied it to one of the screws on the light fixture.  The cord fit perfectly in that little space between the screw head and the fixture rim.

Then, Alfred stood and I kneeled on my bed and we batted the plane back and forth at each other, ducking to dodge hard swings and smacking it back at the other person.  It was all great fun.

It was all great fun until the one time we were playing with it and the round, bulbous frosted glass fixture broke.  Broken frosted glass all over my bed.  Pooey.  The airplane didn’t hit the glass.   We didn’t really know why it broke.  Even looking back, I’m not sure.  Perhaps the screw with the plane on it was twisted just enough to put too much pressure on the cover’s rim, maybe it was tweaked at an angle that pierced the glass and caused it to shatter, maybe the screw came loose and the cover fell out and hit something on the way down.

I also don’t remember getting in trouble, but I’m sure we must have.  We certainly didn’t play airplane tetherball again.

My New Lamp

Last week, I wrote about the end of my Lego lamp.  Death is always connected to rebirth in some way.  So, after taking apart the Lego lamp, I made a new table lamp.

Introducing, my Lego Bucket Lamp!

I had started this lamp years ago, after building my Lego lamps.  I had gotten two lamp kits and two sets of steel nipples back then.  So I had this Lego bucket with a hole drilled in the lid and in the bucket’s center bar sitting around just waiting for finishing details.

To finish the lamp, I drilled a smaller hole in the bottom of the bucket.  The holes in the lid and support bar are sized for the lamp pipe.  The hole on the bottom of the bucket is smaller so the lamp pipe doesn’t fall out the bottom.  That hole is for the cord.  Lego buckets have a groove on two sides of the bottom of the bucket.  They’re the perfect size for the cord; the bucket sits completely stable on a flat surface.

  I strung the cord first through the bottom hole and into a 6” steel nipple inside the bucket.  Then I put a longer piece of lamp pipe through the hole in the support bracket and threaded a coupler onto the bottom of it.  I pulled the  cord through that pipe and threaded the 6” pipe into the coupler.  The pipe rests on the bottom of the bucket, held up straight by the snug hole in the support bracket.

Next, I put the lid on the bucket and attached the shade holder and socket pieces to the top of the lamp pipe, wired the socket to the cord and placed the socket cover over the wires.  Lampshade harp and bulb in, and the lamp was ready to try out.

It worked!

 

 

Mr. Weasel is demonstrating how the lid can be lifted and the bucket can still serve as a storage device. :)

 

Other neat things to do with Lego
buckets: Cute as a Bucket

So Long Lego Lamp

It was one of my favorite pieces of decor.  But, having no place to put it now that I rearranged my living room and the fact that I broke it moving it means that the Lego lamp’s time to shine is over.

Its coordinating partner is already long gone, having been broken years ago by an old roommate.

One lamp was black with a white stripe and the other was white with a black stripe.  Zebra colors to go with the African decor in my living room.  I had gotten some zebra home decor fabric to cover the lampshade but didn’t like the lampshade enough to cover it.

I made the lamps with Legos – obviously – a simple lamp kit and standard 1/8-IP Thread steel nipples, aka lamp pipe.  I built a little house with a door way and window openings.  The cord exited through the door so the lamp could sit flat on the table.  Then I built a tower with a hollow center.  Near the middle, a Lego stuck into the tube to catch the lamp pipe.  At the top of the hallow tube, I inserted the lamp pipe and cushioned around it with tissue so it would stand-up straight inside the Lego tower.  You can see some of the structure in the picture above.

The lamps had fun little details, such as a ledge, ladders and other places for Lego people to hang out.   This lamp, the one pictured above, served as a table lamp in my living room.  It was home to a little Luke Skywalker and Darth Maul, much to my sister’s chagrin since those two are from different generations.  No creativity, that one.

Taking the lamp apart was pretty easy.  Breaking Lego creations is always easier than putting them together.

  And the great thing about Legos is, if I ever decide I want another Lego lamp, I can just build a new one!

 

Here’s the lamp that replaced the Lego lamp.  I got it from church when we cleaned out the building.  It’s an old surveyor’s stand.  (There used to be a speaker there, serving as an end table for the Lego table lamp.)  The awesome ceramic bunny was also a church-cleaning find.

Fun with Munchkinhead Day 9

No fun without Munchkinhead.  Munchkinhead left today.  In fact, as I’m typing this, she should be getting off her plane in Milwaukee.

Before she left, we squeezed in one last trip to the plaza.  We got matching shoes.  Munchkinhead had to repack to fit the shoes in, but she did it.  She only bought 3 pairs of shoes on the trip.  Not bad for such a long visit.

Munchkinhead trying on shoes.
The one on her right foot are the ones we got.

Munchkinhead also repotted my plant for me.  It’s a small yellow rose plant that Mzzzzz Jones got for me about two  years to cheer me up when I was sad.  It’s badly needed repotting, but I’m terrible at that sort of stuff.  Munchkinhead, on the other hand, is very good with plants. 

We picked up a slightly larger and very nice pot at Ross the other day.  It even matches my kitchen curtains!  We got a small bag of potting soil from the local hardware store.  Munchkinhead laid some newspaper out on the kitchen floor and went to work.  My plant looks happier already.

A Pirate’s Life for Me

The waves crashed into the side of the boat with tremendous force.  A storm was brewing for sure, and it was only a matter of time before the pirate ships headed on a collision course would meet.  The larger ship had recently been captured and still held its precious cargo.  Unfortunately for the pirate captain, the ship hadn’t been transporting gold or even something useful like cannons.  No, this ship belonged to a zoo and was transporting a large menagerie across the wide ocean.

The smaller ship had no cargo, only a lone, fierce and brave pirate and her monkey.  The monkey had a small treasure chest of its own, but the pirate had nothing other than her wits and trusty combination-rapier-and-telescope to guide her through the menacing ocean.  She buckled down and prepared for battle as her tiny boat neared the massive zoo ship.

The pirate captain couldn’t maneuver the massive zoo ship, and the spunky little pirate drew close enough to attack.  A raging battle commenced, and as the pirate captain’s sword was chopped to pieces, she began off-loading her cargo, flinging tigers and raccoons and chipmunks at the little pirate.  The little pirate began filling her boat with the valuable animals-turned-ammunition, but she didn’t let up.  She continued her attack and seized the large ship pirate’s captain hat.  “Ha ha! Now I am the captain,” she cackled, launching animals back at the zoo.

The battle raged on and on until both pirates’ combination-rapier-and-telescopes were broken into tiny unusable pieces, the ocean was littered with swimming, floating and sinking animals, the pirates were too exhausted to keep fighting, and and the pirates had to summon their daddy to put the smoke detector back on the ceiling.

Ok, ok, so the ocean waves were only Mommy’s green carpeting, the small boat a Dell computer box and all the zoo animals stuffed, but for me and Munchkinhead, it was a real pirate adventure.  And one of our favorite games to play at Christmas time when wrapping paper tubes combination-rapier-and-telescopes are common.

Adventures from Home: Munchkinhead has a Job

Pretty Little Munchkinhead, she’s got the pretty little museum bug.  I suppose we all have it, thanks to Daddy’s summer vacations, but some of us got it worse than others.  Alfred’s got it pretty bad, what with her masters degree in museum collections stuff.  Munchkinhead’s just working on discovering hers, and she’s had the perfect summer job to help her do it: Trimborn farms.

One day, while Alfred and I were both in Wisconsin, we went with Munchkinhead to the farms, to explore while she worked.  And explore we did, every adorable and crazy photo op we could find.

We stood in the limestone kilns, before we knew they were limestone kilns.

We peered through fences,

 

 

 

 

ran through the grassy green meadow.

found things to play with,

and, rested for a bit in front of the museum house.

                                           

Only for a bit, for there was so much more to explore.  Like the barn,

and, well, that’s not actually the barn.  Munchkinhead straightened us out later.  The barn is much bigger and has some holes in its roof where the rain gets in.

Munchkinhead actually taught us a lot about the farm before we left for the day.  She taught us about the plants in the garden and which ones we could eat.

There was lemon mint, anise and chives.  I liked the lemon mint the best.  The fuzzy texture was fun.  All we needed was some rum.

By the end of our adventurous morning, running across the yard, climbing up hills and wanting to roll down them, we were quite tired and opted to take a nap on Munchkinhead.

She was not so pleased.

Adventures from Home: Batons, Balls and Bugs, pt. 3

A long, long time ago, when Alfred was still a Schultz and we hadn’t yet left the safe bubble of St. Francis, a little girl picked up a flyer at a parade.  “Leslynettes Baton Twirling Corps.”  Alfred was delighted – she already had a friend from school in the corps - and it wasn’t long before she was marching down the street in a little blue leotard with red sequined sailor collar and small sequined anchor on her hip.

Twenty years and more costumes than you can count later, that little twirler still knows her parade routines.  So do her sisters, who also eventually joined the corps, although never becoming close to as good as she was.  Fishtails with two batons simultaneously, only Alfred.  Regular double and occasional triple toss-turn-arounds, only Alfred.  Crying in the corner in her hula skirt, a very cute little munchkinhead.  Almost hitting the judge with her baton, yeah, that’d be me.

But for us, not being good at something has never been a reason to not have fun doing it.  So when we found those old baton cases in the back hall closet this summer, we were more thrilled to pull out our old metal rods and do a few tosses.

“No, I think that was routine 4, routine 2 had something like this.”  We tried to sort out which routines we could remember.  “Well 3 is certainly the easiest,” one of us piped up, followed by all three of us in unison, “Up, up. Down, down. Out 2-3-4, out 2-3-4. Up. Out. Shoulder 2-3-4 and down.”  “And 6, we all know 6.”  It turned out we remembered a good number of them.  Of the 6 main routines, we knew 1, 3, 4 and 6.  So we had a little parade around the front lawn.

Always feeling more graceful than we looked, we took over the dirveway doing thumbflips, tour jetes, toss-turn-arounds and leaps.  Then we decided to have some real fun, a strut off!  With some more of our favorite routine at the end.  Daddy sat on the porch with his iced tea, laughing as we outlined an invisible square with our high steps.

Mommy’s not-so-little twirlers

 

Munchkinhead clearly won the strut off. 

Adventures from Home: Batons, Balls and Bugs, pt. 2

If you’ve been following this blog for the past 8 years, or if you happen to wander down to the toy box and explore old posts, you’ll know that another practically mandatory part of a trip to Milwaukee is a nice energetic game of roof volleyball.  (Fully explained in this 2003 post.)

An early morning downpour had left the grass shiny with moisture.  The wet blades squished between our toes and dampened our feet.  The ball was a little deflated, smaller and more pliable than it ought to be, but that will happen to children’s playground balls when they sit unloved in the closet 11 months of the year.  We’d be darned if we were going to use the hard soccer ball that was our only other option.

Lined up on the grass, one front row player, one back row, one picture taker from the porch, we were ready to start.  “Volley for the serve!”  The ball flew through the air and bounced onto the lower roof.   The roof almost never uses its back row, towering high above the front row that covers the porch and garage.

Even though we were only doing a 2 player team, rotating in, we still went full court, from the south end of the roof to the north end of the grass.  Half court has gotten to small as we and the tree at the south end of the court have grown.  Super court is too hard, both in terms of difficulty of coverage and in terms of playing surface; it includes the driveway.

“Whop!”  “Blat!”  “Thud!”  The ball bounced off gutter, ricocheted off our hands and occasionally slammed into the front window, or a cup of water resting on the porch.  “We’re Frosted Flakes, we’re great!”  Our old cheer went up, along with some very bad cheerleader-esque jumps.

It was a tough series – that roof never seems out of practice – but we came out a head, taking the series 2-0.  Don’t worry roof, you’ll get another chance soon.  Probably in winter, when you like to steal the ball and keep it for yourself.

Adventures from Home: Batons, Balls and Bugs pt. 1

I was hoping for hot weather. You know that beautiful heat wave the whole rest of the county’s been having lately?  Yeah, the Bay Area has it, too.  It means we get temperatures in the ‘70s.  So when I was heading to Wisconsin, I was really hoping for some nice 80 degree weather.  I wanted to go swimming, wanted to go swimming so much that we even helped Daddy open the pool.  Of course, opening the pool means cleaning the pool, skimming and vacuuming, getting rid of all those dead bugs.

(World take note, I’m not wearing shoes in that picture. Look hard now; you won’t see that very often.)

We probably could have actually gone swimming despite the cooler air temperatures if the filter hadn’t been broken.  After all, mid-70’s is decent pool weather when the pool water is also decent.  But the filter being broken meant the water couldn’t run through the solar heater.  Sixty degree water is not fun for swimming. 

The closest we got to getting in the pool was Munchkinhead and me playing Follow-the-Leader on the stairs.  The water near the surface was warmed a bit by the sun, so we were ok on the first stair.  The second stair wasn’t too bad either, but the third stair, brrrrrr, frigid.  That just made the adventure even more fun as we scrambled to get across the stair and out of the pool as fast as we could. 

Alfred was not interested in playing Follow-the-Leader with us, nor was she interested in getting wet, so she took lots of pictures for us.

Sufficiently soaked and amused, we wandered off to our next adventure.

Yogurt, Sandcastles and Physics

I don’t consider myself a health food nut (that’s my Daddy) – I just eat what I find yummy - but today, as I opened my lunch box and pulled my light blueberry yogurt out from under my rice cakes, I had to wonder if anyone else would agree with me.  Oh well.

Yogurt, it’s a fun, nice little treat.  One of those things I only buy on sale.  This particular one was my favorite brand, Yoplait.  I remember Daddy often buying Yoplait when I was a little girl.  Back then, my favorite was the custard style, banana.  Now, my favorite is the pineapple coconut with the pieces of fruit and crunchy little coconut shavings in it.

I was always fascinated by the shape of those Yoplait containers.  I remember once carefully washing out my empty Yoplait cup, being careful to get all the yogurt out and not break the plastic.  I took that little Yoplait cup into the back yard, to the sandbox Daddy had made for us.  I thought it was going to make a really neat sandcastle, cuz the top would be bigger than the bottom.

It didn’t work.  Cuz the top was bigger than the bottom.  I packed my sand into the container, mixed with just enough water to get a good, strong castle, and I flipped that Yoplait container over exactly where I wanted that piece of my castle, and I pulled up the container, and …. nothing.  The sand was all still inside the container.  Cuz the top was bigger than the bottom (when the Yoplait container was upside-down in sandcastle mode).

I tried to help ease the sand out, as if it could squish through the smaller opening and come out in the proper shape – like Daddy Bunny in a suitcase.  The sand came crumbling out of the Yoplait cup into a big pile of, sand, just a big pile of sand.

No neat little Yoplait shaped sandcastle for me.  Boo. :(