英语美文经典范文
The Damn Cape
When I was younger, before the reality of actually being a mom showed up with the birth of my first daughter, Madison, I had visionary ideas of the kind of mother I would be and the kind of environment I would raise my children in. Since Madison"s birth about eleven years ago, I have long given up any illusions about a perfectly immaculate and tidy house with an alphabetized pantry, clothes hung in idyllic wardrobes, fresh flower arrangements on tabletops and Martha Stewart dinners. I gave up sophomoric ideals of calmly chaperoning my children to ballet, soccer, gymnastics and play group, not to mention all the volunteer work I would do at the PTA, the library and the Mommy-and-Me classes. I was going to make artistic little cookies and cupcakes, snowmen on paper plates with cotton balls, valentines from doilies and - of course - handmade Halloween costumes.
As we all know, life doesn"t always turn out the way we envision it. It doesn"t mean that life is bad. In fact, more often than not, what we get is much better than we envision, but it is different. Instead of being an at-home mom, I work full-time and commute about four hours a day. With my schedule, it"s impossible to do all the parenting things I used to envision. I wouldn"t change the way things are, though. I love my job, and it"s a "me" thing. However, I still feel it"s important to do a lot of the other "mommy" things. My cookies aren"t artistic, but I do make them. I don"t cook like Martha Stewart, but I do make dinner on occasion. I have no idea what to do with paper plates, doilies or cotton balls, but I can draw a darn good butterfly tattoo with a gel pen.
Halloween is a big holiday for my kids, especially Madison, now eleven years old. Still, I have always felt bad that I never made her a costume. She"s always had great costumes, but I mean really "make" one - you know, with fabric, patterns, string and needles. For Christmas last year, Madison received a sewing machine (she"s much more domestic than I). This year, I decided I would make at least part of her costume. Madison wanted to be Lucilla, the emperor"s sister from Gladiator. We found the dress and accessories without a problem, but then she decided she wanted a cape. That"s when my life became hell.
When Madison said she wanted me to make her a cape, I was thrilled. I could make it, and it would be easy. Slap two pieces of material together, give it a tie and, voilà, you have a cape and a daughter who thinks you"re "the bomb."
My first mistake was taking Madison with me to the fabric store and letting her pick the pattern and fabrics. I couldn"t have possibly known that it was a mistake because I have never sewn a thing in my life and don"t have a clue what a pattern does, how it works or what it means. However, after finding myself capable of threading the machine (albeit with the instruction manual) after a mere four hours, I felt like a pro.
Madison picked out what I thought was a lovely cape pattern. I didn"t know what any of the number things meant on the package, so I just gave it to the nice lady at the really big cutting table and asked her to measure out the correct amounts of fabrics. Madison chose a cranberry velour for the outside of the cape and a cheery purple satin for the lining. When the nice lady at the really big cutting table measured out fourteen yards of fabric, I thought she was being generous so we could make a bedspread or tent or something with the leftovers.
I woke up early Sunday morning thinking I could surprise Madison by making the cape before church, which I was absolutely determined to get to. I pulled out the pattern. Hmm. Lots of puzzle-like pieces. Must be what they call "pattern pieces." They were numbered, which was good. Any moron can figure out that you put 1 with 2, 2 with 3, 3 with 4. I just hadn"t counted on 9 with 10, 15 with 16. It took me two hours to cut out the "pattern pieces" and another two hours to pin them to the fabric. I was running short on time. I didn"t want to miss church, but I couldn"t leave what I"d started where I started it. I had to move furniture in the living room to lay all the fabric out, and I could just imagine the fun my three-year-old would have if she woke up and saw it just waiting for her to play on. I said a quick prayer, asked for God"s forgiveness for missing church, and prayed there was a sewing saint to help me out. A little less than four hours later, I had the fabric cut and the first seam pinned together. I had no idea what the little black diamond things meant. I decided the pattern artist just put them there to make novices feel stupid. I ignored them. It was time to start sewing. By Sunday evening, I had the seams of the outside of the cape stitched neatly together. I figured I could wrap up the rest of the cape on Monday evening.
Monday evening, I raced home from work to get working on the cape. All I had to do was the lining and the hood and stitch everything together and hem it. Madison was so cute. She stayed in the room with me, trying to help as much as I would let her. She was so patient and smiled the whole time. I thought back to when I was her age. I would have been thinking about how pretty I would look in my costume and have fanciful imaginations about actually being the person I was portraying. I could tell from looking at Madison"s face that she was in the same dreamlike state. At that moment I thought, No matter how much work and time this takes, the look on Madison"s face is worth it. That"s about when things started going downhill.
I stitched the lining together without a hitch. I was thrilled. I laid out the velour, then laid out the lining on top of it, certain that putting the two together would be a snap. Madison"s face changed. "Mom, I think something"s wrong with that." She was pointing to the lining. I didn"t see it at first. And then my heart sank. I had sewn the eight panels of the lining right side up, wrong side up, right side up, wrong side up. I had to rip the whole thing apart and do it all over. I let out of stream of epithets that would make a sailor proud and ended with "damn cape."
Madison, bless her, said, "Mom, it"s okay. Just leave it. It"s just the lining. No one will see it." I gave her a hug. I think if Madison were anyone else, I would have left it, but I had seen the look on her face when she was thinking about how pretty she would look when she was dressed up, and I wanted it to be perfect for her. At least as perfect as I could make it. You see, Madison is a cancer survivor. She had cancer treatments, a bone marrow transplant and lots of complications suck up a majority of the last four years of her life. As far as I"m concerned, she has compromised enough. And I could do better than a badly sewn lining. That didn"t mean my language cleaned up much, but I did manage to rip the lining apart and get it re-sewn correctly . . . I think. It was almost midnight. I put the damn cape away for Tuesday.
I raced home from work on Tuesday, determined to finish the damn cape. I laid out the velour and the lining on top of it. I started pinning the two sides together. I think I figured out why I was supposed to cut those little black darts. I think maybe that"s what is used as a kind of guide to piece the pieces together. Maybe the pattern artist really wasn"t an evil person with an intelligence complex. I would remember that next time. Had to make do for now.
I don"t claim to know anything about fabric, but I have no doubt that the combination of velour and satin is about the most unfriendly combination you can encounter. The velour rolls up, you can"t find a straight line, the satin slips around everywhere. In fact, I think it"s an ideal way to torture hardened criminals. I don"t know how many hours it took me to pin the thing together, but my repertoire of profanity developed at an envious rate, always ending in "damn cape." Madison just sat with me patiently. I think she was praying - if not for the damn cape, for me not to go to hell for all the swearing.
Finally pinned, it was late, and I knew I wasn"t going to finish the cape, but I wanted to at least stitch the outside seams together. The fabric was so heavy and unwieldy, Madison had to help me. I slipped (okay, shoved) the first corner under the footer thing on the sewing machine and pressed the pedal. I had sewn about six inches when the machine stopped. I stepped on the pedal again . . . and again . . . and again. Nothing. I tried flipping buttons and knobs. I tried plugs. I tried the fuse box. Nothing. I then took swearing to a whole new art form, crescendoing at levels that Pavarotti would never attain, ending yet again with "damn cape." I threw the cape on the counter and went to bed.
Wednesday morning, I e-mailed my dear friend, Jo, who is an incredible seamstress and knows things about machinery. She e-mailed me back, "DON"T PANIC. We can do it at my house Friday night." That didn"t satisfy me. I called her at work. "IT"S TOO LATE! I"M ALREADY PANICKING!" She laughed at me. I swore at her and hung up.
Even though I was at work, my head was on the damn cape. And the sewing machine. I couldn"t imagine that it was broken after less than a year. Singer was going to get an all-fired-up letter from me with a good resounding "what for"! I found myself in the copy center at work, moaning and whining about the sewing machine and the cape fiasco. Jose, our wonderful copy center person, was there. Jose is a quiet guy. He often knows a lot more about a lot of things than people think, but he never says anything. He had "a look." (I thought if Jose knows more about that sewing machine than I do, I"ll wear a tiara and call myself Diana. I"ll be shopping for my tiara this weekend.) As it turns out, Jose used to fix sewing machines. Go figure. He said the velour fuzz had probably gummed up the machine and told me what to look for. He said if that didn"t work to bring it to work with me on Thursday and he would fix it.
I raced home from work on Wednesday and ran to the sewing machine. I pulled it apart and blew it all out. There sure was a lot of cranberry-colored stuff in there. I put the machine back together and gave it a test run. It worked! God bless Jose. In less than two hours I had the cape stitched together, complete with hood, and hemmed. It is a far cry from perfect and there"s no threat that Armani is going to try to lure me, but it is complete and Madison is happy with it. It"s huge. In fact, I think when Madison is done with it I"m going to use it as a car cover.
I like that I was able to make my daughter"s costume, in spite of, or maybe because of, the frustrations. The joy on her face was priceless, as was the time we spent together making it. There were also a lot of wonderful lessons. I taught my daughter all the words she shouldn"t use and their proper use. I learned that after thirty-seven years, I still don"t have any patience, and God still isn"t tired of trying to teach it to me. I learned that the little black diamonds are important and that not everyone is evil. I learned that the people you least expect it from can be your best resources. I learned that there is nothing more important, more rewarding, closer to heaven than being a mom . . . even if your name isn"t Martha Stewart.
My house is now completely trashed. My three-year-old has been without a bath for four days and naked most of that time. There are at least a dozen loads of laundry that need to be cleaned. I don"t remember when I checked the mailbox last. I should probably attend to these things now that the cape is finished. . . . Or I could just curl up with my babies under the damn cape.
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