Category — Show and Tell

Welcome back to Show and Tell. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. In fact, we hope you do go back to your blog and post your own Show and Tell item and then return with the link to your post. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

On my honeymoon, I began telling Josh a story while we were swimming in the water. I came home, started writing it down, and secured an agent with a few chapters. And then we started trying to conceive.

Over time, the writing slowed down to a trickle until I was barely recording a few words at each session and the writing sessions moved from days to weeks to months apart. I paused around the fourth chapter.

I didn’t begin writing again until I was a few months into the pregnancy and then I raced to finish the book, churning out whole chapters at a time. I wrote the last page on Monday. I completed my final edit on Tuesday. I mailed the book on Wednesday. My agent at the time received it on Thursday. I went into preterm labour and delivered the twins on Friday.

Between mailing the manuscript and delivering the twins, I went to a store and bought myself a ring. Rings have always held great significance for me and with each life change, I have purchased a ring. This one was called “Stones in a River” and it fit who I am and what is important to me perfectly. This is the ring:

I wear it on my right hand:

That is, when I am not wearing another ring. But this one has been back on my hand for a few months now. Regardless of the fact that nothing has ever become of the story (yet?) that moved me to purchase it.

What are you showing today?

Want to bring something to Show and Tell?

• If you would like to join circle time and show something to the class, simply post each Sunday (or earlier in the weekend or on Monday if you can’t do Sunday), hopefully including a picture if possible, and telling us about your item. It can be anything–a photo from a trip, a picture of the dress you bought this week, a random image from an old yearbook showing a person you miss. It doesn’t need to contain a picture if you can’t get a picture–you can simply tell a story about a single item.
• Label your post “Show and Tell” each week and then come back here and add the permalink in the comments section below (make sure you don’t just comment that you participated: add a link to your blog in your comment so people can click over). I post a new Show and Tell post every Saturday night or Sunday. I usually move people up into the body of the post every few hours.
• Oh, and then the point is that you click through all of your classmates and see what they are showing this week.
• If you want it…
  I’ve now placed a Show and Tell archive on the sidebar that will be updated each week in case you miss it. And click here for the icon code if you wish to have it for your blog. It links to the archives.

Welcome back to Show and Tell. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. In fact, we hope you do go back to your blog and post your own Show and Tell item and then return with the link to your post. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

I think Josh has reached the end of his rope with Smith Island. You probably have as well. But isn’t this space delicious? And not in a crab-eating-if-you-don’t-keep-kosher sort of delicious. I mean emotionally delicious? Doesn’t it look as if there are great stories buried amongst the reeds?

Pretty house

This is the cake! I’m tried to recreate it today (see below). This is the slice we ate on the island: The layers were so moist–each are individually baked rather than dividing a whole cake. The icing is a cooked fudge icing that hardens a bit upon cooling–much like a chocolate-glazed donut.

A portrait taken by the Wolvog on the boat ride away from the island. Yes, we are complete fools allowing our three-year-old to work our expensive digital camera. I am sure we will have regrets one day.

Oh, and I made the cake today. It was supposed to take about 45 minutes. It took me over 4 hours. But it came out fantastic in the end. We ate it for breakfast. As you can see, there are 8 layers inside, each a little under a centimeter in thickness. The icing is like liquid fudge. It is the consistency of chocolate caramel. There is a layer of it between each layer.

What are you showing today?

Want to bring something to Show and Tell?

• If you would like to join circle time and show something to the class, simply post each Sunday (or earlier in the weekend or on Monday if you can’t do Sunday), hopefully including a picture if possible, and telling us about your item. It can be anything–a photo from a trip, a picture of the dress you bought this week, a random image from an old yearbook showing a person you miss. It doesn’t need to contain a picture if you can’t get a picture–you can simply tell a story about a single item.
• Label your post “Show and Tell” each week and then come back here and add the permalink in the comments section below (make sure you don’t just comment that you participated: add a link to your blog in your comment so people can click over). I post a new Show and Tell post every Saturday night or Sunday. I usually move people up into the body of the post every few hours.
• Oh, and then the point is that you click through all of your classmates and see what they are showing this week.
• If you want it…I’ve now placed a Show and Tell archive on the sidebar that will be updated each week in case you miss it. And click here for the icon code if you wish to have it for your blog. It links to the archives.

Welcome back to Show and Tell. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. In fact, we hope you do go back to your blog and post your own Show and Tell item and then return with the link to your post. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

Many of the books on our bookshelves are signed because we either know the author or have met the author or have been forced to attend very awkward social gatherings with authors either due to work or school. My favourite ones based on story alone (as in, the story about the signing vs. the book–though I love their books too) are Jasper Fforde, Norton Juster, David Malouf, Paul Muldoon and then the two I am going to show today: David Sedaris and Mark Leyner.

(Ignore the fact that I tucked this copy of the book between a lot of Israeli fiction. Also ignore the fact that I seem to own copious amounts of A.B.Yehoshua)

We went to hear David Sedaris read from Me Talk Pretty One Day back in 2000. It was when Josh and I were engaged but not yet married. After the reading, I wanted to get my book signed, but Josh felt awkward about waiting around to talk to David Sedaris. We actually had a question about Sedaris’s Baltimore reading the next day, but Josh felt shy asking it. So I busted up to the table after the crowd had cleared and asked the question for Josh.

I also asked him to sign my book and Sedaris asked me if I wanted anything specific beyond my name. I said, “can I choose anything?” And he said, “you can choose anything–I’ll write it.” So I said, “I want it to say, “to Melissa, the bravest woman in the world.” He scrawled it across the page and handed the book back to me. Then he asked for my book again and added two words and handed it back again. This is what it now said:

He said even if it wasn’t true, it made for a better story. And so it does.

The Mark Leyner reading was during college in Madison, Wisconsin at Canterbury’s bookstore. He mentioned during the reading that he had stolen something from the hotel he had stayed in prior to Madison and planned on giving it to someone during the reading. After the reading, I went to get two books signed. He was about to sign the first one without looking at me, but then suddenly looked up and startled. He reached into his bag and pulled out a shoe horn.

“I’m so glad you came up to have your book signed. I wasn’t sure if you had stuck around after the reading and I wanted to give this to you–the shoe horn I stole from the other hotel. I had noticed you in the second row.”

Hence my first book is signed:

Afterwards, my friend and I got coffee in the cafe and he joined us at our table for a few minutes. I still have the shoe horn.

What are you showing today?

Want to bring something to Show and Tell?

• If you would like to join circle time and show something to the class, simply post each Sunday (or earlier in the weekend or on Monday if you can’t do Sunday), hopefully including a picture if possible, and telling us about your item. It can be anything–a photo from a trip, a picture of the dress you bought this week, a random image from an old yearbook showing a person you miss. It doesn’t need to contain a picture if you can’t get a picture–you can simply tell a story about a single item.
• Label your post “Show and Tell” each week and then come back here and add the permalink in the comments section below (make sure you don’t just comment that you participated: add a link to your blog in your comment so people can click over). I post a new Show and Tell post every Saturday night or Sunday. I usually move people up into the body of the post every few hours.
• Oh, and then the point is that you click through all of your classmates and see what they are showing this week.
• If you want it…
  I’ve now placed a Show and Tell archive on the sidebar that will be updated each week in case you miss it. And click here for the icon code if you wish to have it for your blog. It links to the archives.

Welcome back to Show and Tell. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. In fact, we hope you do go back to your blog and post your own Show and Tell item and then return with the link to your post. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

This week I am showing a pair of shoes times two.

Once, when we were in Paris, we were invited out to dinner by family friends who also mentioned that we would be going to an art opening. Josh warned me that dinner would most likely be a formal affair and I should dress accordingly. I had a little black velvet cocktail dress to wear but the shoes I brought were scuffed. We decided to swing by La Samaritaine and each purchase new dress shoes.

I immediately fell in love with these–they were my first pair of three-inch mary janes.

We walked over from our hotel in St. Germain to their apartment which was about 15 minute walk. By the time we reached their apartment, I was in a small amount of pain from wearing these brand-new three-inch heels, but they suggested that we walk to the art opening instead of hailing a cab since it was a beautiful night. They told us it was by Notre Dame.

So I limped over to Notre Dame, my feet throbbing and a small cut opening underneath my ankle bone where the unbroken shoes were rubbing against bare skin. We passed the church and kept walking. And walking. And walking. And over a half hour after we passed the church, we finally came to this tiny studio where they had mounted a few pictures on the wall and were serving wine in plastic glasses. Josh and I were in so much pain that we could barely breathe.

After ten minutes of small talk with the owners, we left and began walking again to a small Moroccan restaurant nearby. I may not have wanted to show up in jeans, but a casual skirt would have been more than acceptable. I was extremely overdressed for the restaurant. I sat there, trying not to vomit from the pain that was now radiating all the way up my legs. Both ankles were bleeding.

When we left the restaurant, the family friends suggested we walk back since it was such a beautiful evening, but Josh had the good sense to tell them that we would take the metro back to our hotel. We limped back up our street, shoes in hand, not caring if we were walking barefoot through other people’s weekend revelry vomit. That was how much pain we were in. It affected the rest of the trip even though we spent the week in sensible shoes and bandaids.

When we got back to America, Josh had a jeweler make me this necklace–a replica of each of our shoes.

We still use the other couple’s last name as our personal term for anything that may seem like a good idea at the time but has the potential to bite us in the ass.

What are you showing today?

Welcome back to Show and Tell. Just to recap for any newcomers, here’s how it works:

• Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today.
• If you would like to join circle time and show something to the class, simply post each Sunday (or earlier in the weekend or on Monday if you can’t do Sunday), hopefully including a picture if possible, and telling us about your item. It can be anything–a photo from a trip, a picture of the dress you bought this week, a random image from an old yearbook showing a person you miss. It doesn’t need to contain a picture if you can’t get a picture–you can simply tell a story about a single item.
• Label your post “Show and Tell” each week and then come back here and add the permalink in the comments section below (make sure you don’t just comment that you participated: add a link to your blog in your comment so people can click over). I post a new Show and Tell post every Saturday night or Sunday. I usually move people up into the body of the post every few hours.
• Oh, and then the point is that you click through all of your classmates and see what they are showing this week.

Let’s begin.

This week I am showing two items that are both guitars of a sort.

The one on the left was given to me by my uncle who died. It is the toy that I took away from the ChickieNob and Wolvog because I was afraid they would break it. It is so quintessentially my uncle, my childhood, that time period. It’s so Mork and Mindy. I wish I hadn’t just put away the camera because I would zoom in on the font on that orange sticker. It is called the Magical Musical Thing. When my mother gave it to the twins, I hadn’t seen it in a long time and I sat with it for a while. It felt so fragile, like it had become more breakable with all of the meaning I bestowed on it. It has been hidden in the top shelf of the cupboard. Please don’t tell the twins. It still plays and whenever I take it down, there is an overwhelming need to run through a few rounds of Mary Had a Little Lamb.

The guitar on the right is something I made in Home Ec in 1987. It had been a source of huge frustration–the item that dashed my childhood hopes of becoming a clothing designer. If I couldn’t piece together a simple stuffed guitar, how was I supposed to make couture gowns? Cocktail dresses with cabbage rose sleeves? My mother saved this project and also passed it along to the twins. The ChickieNob likes to play rock star with it and jam out in the toy corral. It is funny to see it lying around my living room, this object that is from Home Ec, from middle school, from an entire different life time.

What are you showing today?

1. Coming2Terms
2. Weebles Wobblog
3. Life From Here
4. My Sanctuary
5. Stop the Train, I Wanna Get Off…
6. There’s Hope
7. The Life and Times of Me!
8. The Sweet Life
9. Infertility on the Brain
10. Kore Chronicles
11. Spuddy Buddy
12. Sticky Feet
13. Bloorb This!
14. Fumbling Towards Eggstacy
15. T.K.O…more or less
16. Letting it Out
17. Isn’t it Pretty to Think So?
18. In Due Time
19. Mommy Sparklykatt
20. Baby, Borneo, or Bust
21. Fertilized
22. Life, Part Deux
23. I’m a Smart One
24. And the Rest is History…
25. The Road Less Travelled
26. I Think I Hear Your Mother Calling
27. Working on It (invite-only blog)
28. Bee Bangbage
29. Who Shot My Stork?
30. Serenity Now!
31. Worth It All
32. The Therapist is In
33. I Won’t Fear Love
34. Imagine Alyzabeth An
35. The Only Constant is Change
36. Southern Infertility
37. Soulbliss
38. Adventures [in]Fertility Wonderland
39. So…who’s next. Don’t be shy, don’t be shy. Even if other posts are above this one, you can still add your item to the discussion. Though if it’s after Tuesday night, maybe save the post until next week. We do this every weekend.

If you want it…
I’ve now placed a Show and Tell archive on the sidebar that will be updated each week in case you miss it. And click here for the icon code if you wish to have it for your blog. It links to the archives.