Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Big Blue Whale and Our Trip to School

Despite getting up late this morning, I managed to get some writing done. That's always good, but still not enough. But I can accept that........

I have no other choice.

I brought Jorgie to school this morning..........with a whale. Yeah, really a whale!

Okay let me back it up a few weeks.

Three weeks ago Jorgie said she was doing a book report, after much deliberation she finally chose a book on whales and dolphins. Those are hard decisions for an eight year old girl. Actually she'll be nine next month, as I am sure she would dutifully point out.

So anyway, she said to me. "That would be cool if I could make a model of a whale."

That little infamous light bulb went on above my head. Sometimes that little light bulb gets me in trouble. So I told her that I have an idea.

Ideas get me in trouble too.

So I told her that we can make a whale out of paper mache. I told her that I remember we did a project with paper mache in school and we used chicken wire and then paper mache on the outside.

So it was off to the store. We got a roll of chicken wire and then we were ready. Jorgie had a lot of questions about how it would look. She worries sometimes.

So we made a large chicken wire frame of a whale, and a dolphin, and Jorgie made one of a manatee.

We cut newspaper up into long strips, mixed 3 1/2 cups of flour with 5 cups of water, stirred and stirred and finally got down to the business of getting really messy.

Messy is an understatement. It drips everywhere, and the kitchen floor was a skating rink of flour and water. Not to mention what we looked like.

Oh as an added note, the whale was about as tall as me, and pretty hard to handle. Not that I'm hard to handle..... well, don't ask April. She might say I am... a little....maybe.

So when we got the top of the whale done, I confidently lifted it up to see if I we could get the bottom done before letting it dry.

BIG MISTAKE! I lifted the whale up by it's tail and the whole top layer of paper mache slid off and splattered onto the floor.

That's when the storm of curses hit. After a few deep breaths........ a few many deep breaths, we started again.

After finishing, we let it dry a few days, then we tackled the task again. Jorgie was very patient with me.... Thanks Jorgie. This time I put plastic down. A little better, still messy though. We got the second layer on and it was finally taking shape.

We let it dry again, then I hung it out in the other room. I put the last layer on while Jorgie was in school, because we were running out of time. The project was already late.

We painted it outside with spray paint, and it actually came out pretty good. It's very large, and Jorgie kept saying. "Maybe we should carry it in a bag."

"Sorry sweetie, it won't fit."

So we went to school. Me carrying a six foot blue whale with a three foot tail under my arm, Jorgie carrying a two foot dolphin.

We walked into class! "Wow..... what's that!"

All attention went from whatever the teacher was talking about to the big fat blue whale under my arm. I bet she loved that. Sorry Mrs. Powers.

So anyway that's the story of the Big Blue Whale, and Those are the Thoughts of a George.

Until tomorrow,
George

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