Check-up

Took Sweet Daughter in for her annual check-up this morning, and they started in with the questions …

"Any allergies?"

"How much milk does she drink? Whole? Skim?"

"How much time in front of the TV or computer each day?"

"Are there any guns in the house?"

And there was the dilemma. How to answer? Do I tell her it’s none of their damn business? Do I lie? Instead, the professionally dressed (yes! A skirt and heels! On FRIDAY, none-the-less), middle-aged mom shot back with “Of COURSE there are guns in the house! How else am I going to keep her safe?”

There was a pause. And then through gritted teeth: “Are they locked up?”

“They’re secure.”

And then I asked SD to recite the 4 Rules.

“See?” I said. “Firearms are like any other tool in the house. Kids need to be taught to respect them, and how to use them with adult supervision, just like knives in the kitchen, or tools in the garage.”

When we got back to the car, SD said “I wanted to tell her all about my Cricket and my pellet pistol, but I didn’t think that would be a good idea.” Smart girl.

And while I don’t think I have a convert, I don’t think CPS is going to get called, either.

Kid Shoot 2013

We’re planning another “Kid Shoot” for the first weekend in June this year … an event we did last year to introduce kids to shooting with pellet guns. Sweet Daughter started out with a pellet pistol at age four and it was invaluable for her learning the Four Rules in a slightly less lethal environment than say, with a .22. Hearing protection wasn’t needed, and an adult could grab the barrel of the gun to keep control as necessary.

Almost 4 years ago!!

Sound like fun? If you act NOW we’ll break out the .22’s for the older kids … and the adults who are new shooters! What could be more fun than blasting away at reactive targets?

But wait! There’s MORE!! We have special celebrity guests! Dr.Mike, Cutler to the Stars™, will make another appearance this year (and will hopefully be prevailed upon to grill bacon-wrapped Vidalia’s again) all the way from North Carolina. In addition to Dr. Mike, we also have a special extra long distance guest … coming all the way from the Volksrepublik of Massachusetts … Jay G!

So, we have pellet-gun goodness! (and plenty of ammo)

The opportunity to bring new shooters to the range in a very non-stressful environment. (Unless Zombie Clown targets really bother you.)

Rock Star guests!

It’s also Open Carry weekend!

And there will food and drink, and possibly even a birthday cake for a milestone birthday.

The proposed date is June 1^st, with a rain date of June 2^nd.  We thinking about starting late morning, early afternoon. If the Shoot goes off as planned on Saturday, is there any interest in a BLOGMEET in Fredericksburg on Sunday with Michael W. and Jay G? Oh, and me, too, I suppose.

EDIT: Or we could do a blogmeet at a pub ... let me know if you're interested in any of this and we'll figure something out ...

EDIT AGAIN: I suppose I should give at least a general location, eh? About a half hour east of Fredericksburg, VA, and an hour south of Waldorf, MD, depending on the traffic.

A couple of notes from the weekend

I’m back home, mostly all in one piece. My ankles have taken to ballooning up to three time their regular size in the evenings. I’m hoping this is a result of many miles on hard floors and will rectify itself in short order.

I met a bunch of new totally fantastic people, and got reacquainted with old friends.

If, in Texas, you ask if a food item is spicy and they say “no”, consider the fact that they are outright lying or have differently calibrated taste buds. Or both.

I learned a new way to eat raw oysters … on a cracker with cocktail sauce. The preferred way ‘round here is to slurp them down with cocktail sauce (if you want to get fancy, put it in a shot glass) and follow with a shot of beer.

Of the 70,000 to 100,000 people that were at the convention this weekend, I didn’t run into a single rude person. And with that many people in one space, there will be collisions. Everyone I ran into was unfailingly polite.

I got to ride in a car with JayG while he dealt with Houston rush hour traffic, a GPS that would spontaneously turn itself off, a cell phone that kept beeping at him for no good reason, and a loud rattle coming from the back end of the car. It was almost poetic listening to his commentary switch from one irritant to the next without missing a beat.

Breda gave me my first ever manicure. Purple sparkle rainbow polish.

My favorite vendor quote of the weekend: “You know when you’re in a firefight, and you run your gun dry and the slide locks back and you don’t notice …?”

Sorry, dude. No frame of reference. I try really hard to avoid firefights.

I’m in Houston.

I managed to miss the excitement at the airport yesterday.

It was in the 40’s this morning, and it’s still cold. I was coerced into packing a bathing suit for this trip. At least the hotel swimming pool is outside so I have an excuse to not put it on.

But it’s pretty awesome here. There are a lot of famous (to me) people here. I’ve been in a perpetual state of “squee” since dinner last night. I’m sitting in a very full press room right now looking around and I’m trying very hard to fit in. Being flanked at the table by these two doesn’t hurt.  

 

P.S. I just met Kathy.

Another Open Carry Update

I haven’t had much to update because it’s been too cold to do much open carrying, and because I don’t get much reaction locally.

Until this evening.

Sweet Daughter and I went to our favorite local restaurant and there were maybe only a half dozen tables filled. Our waiter was professional and polite, but near the end of the meal, another of our “regular” waitresses came over and said that our waiter was wondering why a woman was carrying a pistol in plain sight with a child sitting *right there*.

Being a raging introvert, I have a hard time quickly finding a common frame of reference when talking to a stranger, especially about guns. Tonight, my back, knee and ankle hurt. It was chilly and raining. I wasn’t in the mood to play ambassador, but too bad. When I OC, that’s what I am. So, instead of muttering “BECAUSE I CAN”, or jumping up on the table with a “Shall not be infringed!!!”, I smiled and told the waitress to send him over if he wanted to talk. Instead, she said “Oh, I just told him you were FBI.”

  Not even close.

So, as SD and I were paying the bill, our waiter came up and asked “Why?” Why did I carry a gun? Was I FBI? When I said “no”, he said … “Ah! Police state!” Once again, I replied in the negative. He insisted I was “police state”. Again, I denied it. And again. Finally, getting exasperated, I showed him the Hello Kitty stickers. “Police do not have Hello Kitty stickers on their magazines” I firmly stated. He seemed to agree.

 

He asked if I needed special permission to carry a pistol, and I explained that no, I did not if I carried it out in the open. I needed special permission only if I wanted to cover it up and I showed him my CHP.  He seemed genuinely interested in this odd phenomena, and again he asked … “Why? Why did I do such a thing?”

I pointed at Sweet Daughter and said “To keep her safe.”

Why???

“To keep her safe.” This time, I punctuated it with a look that indicated I was dead serious. And I saw the light bulb go on over his head and he smiled at me and nodded.

 

 

 

New Pockets

In the 18^th century, a woman wore her pockets on a tape tied around her waist, and accessed them through slits in the sides of her petticoats. My pockets were okay ... a bit on the farby side (one had machine embroidery, and the other was cotton ticking) when I decided that I needed new ones. They were 15 -20 years old and holding up well, but they were obsolete.

How, you ask?

They needed a separate compartment on the inside for a cell phone.

Don't judge. When you're the contact person for your unit, you need to be reachable.

Anyhow, I remembered hearing a suggestion that pockets were a good way to use scraps of 18th century printed fabric. So I made some, complete with lining, and flipped through some of my costuming books only to find that I had the construction details wrong.

So, I took them apart, bound them properly (one with scraps of the same cotton fabric, the other with twill tape) and wore them for the first time at the Battersea event. They worked like a charm, and will hopefully last me another 15 - 20 years. Or until modern technology demands an upgrade.

They have since been sewn onto a length of twill tape to tie around the waist.

False hope

Someone threw a Gander Mountain flier on my desk at work. At first I was excited, then I got suspicious. The date on it was from last September.

That was just mean.