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I was waffling on whether to return to this festival this year. I found last year’s festival to be underwhelming. I know that part of the reason was due to the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic but that festival just seemed sad with its relocation to a racetrack. In fact, I ended up spending far less time there than other years.
I decided to give this festival one more chance, especially since it was once again being held in the same building on the grounds of the Maryland State Fairgrounds that it used to be held in before the Coronavirus arrived in 2020. Despite that, things weren’t promising when I attempted to take the Baltimore Light Rail up to Timonium only to have no train arrive at all. (Which I wrote about in my last post.) It was pouring rain and I didn’t feel like making the trip to Timonium so I ended up going to my hometown of Glen Burnie instead (which I also wrote about in my last post).
The next day the weather was better but commuting on the Baltimore Beltway was hell. There is currently major road construction going on and there were long patches of road that were literally grooved highway and it made it a total bitch to steer. (I ended up not driving fast because of it. Of course I had to deal with surly drivers who wanted to speed like crazy despite the grooved pavement.) Driving on those grooves also made a horrible noise while I was driving and it drove me nuts for several minutes. Thankfully I was able to get on smooth streets just before the exit but driving was totally annoying. I was so glad that the other side of the Baltimore Beltway didn’t have that construction so I didn’t have to deal with grooved roads when I was driving home from the festival.
But when I arrived at the German Festival I forgot about my driving troubles.
That German Festival is just the way that I remembered it in previous years. There were all kinds of arts and crafts items for sale. I saw people dressed in traditional German clothing. And the food they had was delicious! (I had the bratwurst and sauerkraut platter for lunch and it was delicious!) It was such an improvement over the 2020 one. Here are a few photos I shot.
Someone had left out all kinds of board games for people to play with, such as this couple who played with giant-sized Jenga blocks.
Unlike other years, the live entertainment was held outside in this pavilion. The footage was streamed on a TV set inside of the building where most of the festival was held but there were also seats for people who wanted to watch live music outside.
I shot some footage of people playing polka music. First up was this band playing generic German polka music that I uploaded on to TikTok, Instagram, Clapper, and YouTube.
Next is this polka version of Santana’s classic “Oye Como Va” song, which I uploaded on TikTok, Instagram, Clapper, and YouTube.
Then there was this polka version of Bobby Vinton’s “My Melody of Love,” which I uploaded on TikTok, Instagram, Clapper, and YouTube.
Then there were some more traditional German polka music, which I uploaded on to TikTok, Instagram, Clapper, and YouTube.
Finally here’s a polka cover of The Who’s “Squeeze Box,” which I uploaded on to TikTok, Clapper, and YouTube.
For some reason it’s not on my Instagram account. I don’t know if I uploaded it and Instagram took it down or if I forgot to upload it on that platform.
I bought a few things at that festival. Right before I left I purchased this chicken schnitzel sandwich on a pretzel roll, which I heated in the microwave oven and ate when I got home.
I purchased three baked goods. Two were apple turnovers while the third was a small black forest cake. I took me almost a week to eat them all. I found them to be very delicious.
I bought this small German flag for only $1. It’s perfectly scaled for my smaller dolls and Disney Nuimos.
And, finally, I purchased this Bavarian hat that gave me fairy tale vibes. It’s made from heavy felt so I probably won’t begin to wear it in public until around the fall (when the weather will get cooler). In case you’re wondering, I still wear a mask when I’m in an indoor public place because the Coronavirus has not gone away and scientists are predicting that there will be a surge in new cases later this year.
Here’s a pro tip for creatives: Never sell your designs that incorporate the same yellow Star of David that the Nazis once made Jews wear during World War II. A hat shop in Nashville known as hatWRKS thought it would be cute and hip to create special anti-vaccine badges using the yellow Star of David with the words “NOT VACCINATED” in the center.
Of course it led to outrage among Jews and picketing outside of the hatWRKS store. The shop initially doubled down on its decision to sell this product by comparing getting the COVID-19 vaccine to fascism. Never mind the fact that this yellow Star of David was originally created by a fascist government that it forced its Jewish citizens to wear. It was only after Stetson pulled its hats from that store that the owner of hatWRKS apologized for its offensive product.
But then, after issuing that apology, it sent out this Instagram post where the owner whines about how this country has devolved into a mob mentality and how using the Star of David doesn’t mean that she is anti-semitic.
Seriously I don’t know what these people were thinking when they decided to put this product on sale. A few years ago Urban Outfitters decided to sell trendy t-shirts with a similar Star of David design that also aroused outrage from Jews and it led to that store to stop selling them. If the owner of hatWRKS didn’t learn much about the Holocaust in school, she should have at least learned from what happened with Urban Outfitters before going ahead with its own anti-vaccine Star of David.
Even with that apology people are still going after hatWRKS. Here’s a tweet from someone alerting Shopify to the fact that hatWRKS uses its servers for its online store.
If you look at the official hatWRKS Instagram account, their posts seem to be more about the owner’s personal pro-Trump political views and less about hats. Seriously, what kind of professional Instagram account have fewer posts about a store’s core product and main reason for existing in the first place (hats) and more posts about how horrible Joe Biden is and why people should not get vaccinated against COVID-19? Right now there’s an incredibly interesting Reddit thread about hatWRKS and its owner and the stories I hear about that owner aren’t flattering at all. That store’s Yelp review page is also an eye-opener because there have been complaints about the way that the store was being run long before this yellow star incident happened. In a way I’m amazed that she has managed to stay in business despite doing things that seem to sabotage it.
One weekend last fall I spent time at my Unitarian Universalist congregation exploring art and spirituality. Thanks to my recent work with the Census Bureau I was actually able to afford to pay the $20 fee where I spent an entire Saturday doing creative stuff.
The theme of this day-long art retreat was based around MILCK’s song “Quiet.”
There were three morning workshops that were scheduled concurrently followed by a lunch break then followed by a repeat of the same three workshops in the afternoon.
For the morning workshop I took the visual arts one, which was pretty interesting. We started with a small piece of paper where we had to draw something with chalk pastel while we kept our eyes closed. Then we passed the drawing to a partner to embellish before we got our drawing back for us to embellish some more. We passed it back and forth to the same partner to embellish. Then we had to write one word that described what we were trying to convey then give it to another person who didn’t work on it for him/her to write one word that describes what he/she thinks their drawing is about. Here is the drawing where I did the base drawing but it was embellished by me and my partner along with two words that described it.
Here is the drawing where my partner did the base drawing but it was embellished by me and my partner while a third person provided the words that described it.
And here is all of the small chalk pastel drawings that were created during that workshop.
Once we finished the small drawings we moved on to doing more chalk pastel drawings on larger pieces of paper. For this exercise we were placed in groups of three. Each group member received a large piece of paper along with chalk pastel. First we had to do the initial drawing with our eyes shut. Then we rotated to one of the group member’s drawing to embellish it. Then we rotated to the other group’s member to embellish that drawing. Then we rotated back to our own drawing and embellished it some more. Ultimately we attached the drawings together into a round work of art.
Pictured is the one where I did the base drawing but it was embellished by my two partners.
Here are the other two drawings where someone else did the base drawing but I and the third partner embellished it.
For the afternoon session I took a combined music and dancing workshop where I was in the group that did a liturgical dance while the musicians and singers performed MILCK’s “Quiet.” I had never danced like this in public and the rehearsals were pretty intense, especially since we were expected to perform at the Sunday service on the following day.
On the following day the large chalk pastel drawings that we did during the two workshops were attached together into circles and they were displayed during the Sunday service the following day. They were later removed when it was time for us to perform our dance.
After the service ended we had a silent auction where we sold some of our handcrafted goods to the highest bidders. Pictured are the hats that I created in both adult and children’s sizes throughout 2019 using donated yarn that came from my church’s yarn supply. I managed to sell only one hat during that time for a $10 bid. (I placed a $5 minimum bid since all of the proceeds were going to my church.)
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I had a busy summer where I was juggling two part-time jobs while trying to keep up with my creative side during whatever spare time I had. I decided to take part in the Internet-wide collaboration with the YouTube channel Dollightful where I took a doll I purchased from a dollar store and customized her into a Pink Flamingo Mermaid. I spent the last week before the deadline shooting photos of this doll against various backdrops in order to find the one that I could submit to the Dollightful video.
I decided to do some final shoots of the doll in Baltimore. Like I wrote in an earlier post, I decided to travel to Baltimore after President Donald Trump issued a series of insulting tweets denouncing Baltimore as “this very dangerous and filthy place” (among other insults). I found out that there is a beach-like place located near Fells Point called The Sandlot, which I felt would be the perfect location to shoot photos of my mermaid doll.
But then I discovered that BronyCon, the convention devoted to the hit cartoon show My Little Pony, was the same weekend. I previously attended BronyCon in 2013, 2014, and 2015 but I stopped attending for a few years due to increasingly tight finances. I wasn’t sure about squeezing BronyCon between my other project whose deadline was looming.
I thought about skipping BronyCon again this year until I found out that this was going to be the last BronyCon ever. One of the reasons given was that this year is the final season of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and the convention organizers wanted to end BronyCon on a high note.
So I had to choose whether to go to the last BronyCon or take those mermaid doll photos at The Sandlot. I decided on a third option: I would try to do both.
I was only able to attend BronyCon on Saturday (the second day) due to scheduling conflicts. In fact, Saturday was the only day I was able to go to Baltimore, which was why I had to compress everything on my visit. I left early in the morning in order to have time to fully experience the last BronyCon.
I had the idea of seeing if there were any kind of tropical displays that I could use as a backdrop for my mermaid doll photo. I never found a suitable display for my mermaid doll but I took a bunch of other photos while I was at BronyCon. Here is one of the BronyCon banners that were on display outside of the Baltimore Convention Center for the last time ever.
Like I wrote earlier, I hadn’t gone to BronyCon in four years. The one big change I noticed is that people can now display on their badges their preferred pronouns, which definitely makes this convention more open and accepting of transgender people and people who are currently struggling with their own gender identity.
Each badge also came with something called Color Communication Cards, which you display on your lanyard in order to let others know whether you are in the mood to socialize with others or not.
I also got a program book, which looks like it had a Mission: Impossible theme. Here is the front cover.
Here is the back cover.
Here is the entire cover when it’s spread out.
And, finally, here is the inside back cover, which is pretty poignant considering that it’s the last BronyCon ever.
When I last went four years ago I stood in line for over an hour before I was able to purchase my pass. This year I was in and out in less than 20 minutes (which was reminiscent of the 2013 and 2014 BronyCons). I found this year’s BronyCon to be just as exciting as the previous ones I attended. People were mostly in high spirits but there was also a bit of sadness since it would be the last BronyCon ever. And, yes, there were plenty of people in costume as they cosplayed their favorite My Little Pony characters. I shot this short video showing the highlights of my day at BronyCon.
I also shot plenty of still photos as well, which you can see below.
Like previous BronyCons I attended, the organizers had a few gender-neutral restrooms, which further indicates how open that con was to transgender people.
I’ve long played the video game Dance Dance Revolution on both my Playstation 2 and Nintendo Wii. I tend to use the soft pads because they are cheap to buy and they are easy to store when not in use. (There are also metal pads but prices start at $200 compared to around $20 for a soft pad.) BronyCon was the first time I’ve ever seen a Dance Dance Revolution pad made from wood. I saw people play it and it seems to work just as well as the soft and metal pads.
I’m going to pause here to share a personal memory that, on the surface, seems unrelated to BronyCon but it does. (Trust me.) When I was growing up my mother had a manual Royal typewriter that she purchased for home. She occasionally used it herself but she thought that by the time I took my first typing class I would be able to use it. Except both my middle school and high school where I took typing classes had electric typewriters only and I had a difficult time switching to a manual because I had grown used to the electric version. My parents ultimately got rid of the manual typewriter and bought a Sears electric typewriter that I used throughout my senior year of high school and all four years of college.
So I go to BronyCon and I walked in this room where there are manual typewriters available for anyone to use. What’s more, I saw plenty of people actually typing of them. I thought it was kind of amusing since I had initially learned to type on a typewriter long before the people in this next photo were even born. (LOL!)
That same room had drawing paper and drawing supplies where people could create their own art. I did this quick ink drawing sketch featuring a circle of hands while I was resting from all that walking around.
Other people tried their hand at drawing as well.
It was the last time I would see official signs referring to the BronyCon venue as the “Baltimare Convention Center.”
I started to notice more people cosplaying as Marvel superheroes at this BronyCon compared to the previous ones, where the majority of cosplayers stuck only with My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
Someone known as the Sweetie Bot Project created a couple of really cool looking pony robots.
There was an impromptu memorial that was dedicated to BronyCon’s imminent demise after the last day on Sunday, August 4, 2019.
I attended a workshop and a panel during my time at the last BronyCon. The workshop I attended was on voice acting where I learned one new thing about My Little Pony: All of the voice acting was done at this studio located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and the majority of the voice actors in that series were Canadians.
I attended a panel which featured Lauren Faust, who was the original creator of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
She spoke about her experiences with working on that series and I found it to be quite fascinating. Fortunately there is a YouTube video of her entire presentation that is definitely worth checking out.
Parked outside of the Baltimore Convention Center was this car that had the design and color scheme of Rainbow Dash (a pegasus pony who is one of the main character on the show).
I purchased some swag but it wasn’t as much as previous BronyCons because I’m still trying to watch my finances. Everything I purchased this time were ones that were sold to raise money for charity. I made a donation to get this button that benefitted a charity known as Extra Life.
I made a donation in order to get two other items whose proceeds were being raised to benefit organizations that are fighting cancer. Here is the button I received.
I also got a 2020 wall calendar, where each month features a mashup of My Little Pony characters with various Japanese anime series.
I purchased one non-charitable item at BronyCon. It was a My Little Pony microfiber cloth that I purchased for $5. I bought it because I noticed that the screen on my smartphone was starting to look very smeary and I just wanted to clean it up a bit. That cloth did the job on my smartphone.
That’s it for the last BronyCon. I had just as good of a time at this one as I did at the previous ones. I’m sad to see it go but I’ve seen other conventions and events I’ve attended in the past become defunct (such as Interventioncon and the Silver Spring Maker Faire) so I’ve been through this before. BronyCon may be gone for good but I’ll always have the happy memories of the times that I’ve attended.
Now that I have a day job again, I can afford some occasional indulgences. It’s been incredibly stressful being cash-poor and not being very mobile due to money. While I’m definitely not entirely caught up in paying off my debts, I also am tired of feeling that life is slipping away from me. This feeling started in 2011 when I had the hip problems that required surgery and I couldn’t participate in a lot of things due to not being very mobile. It continued after my husband left and I had a hard time finding and keeping jobs that paid enough so I could support myself.
I just have this need to have fun again. I decided to check out the annual German Festival at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Lutherville-Timonium. I went for the first time as an adult in 2013 and I enjoyed it so much that I returned in 2014. Then I didn’t return until three years later in 2017. I found that not much had changed during my three-year absence.
This year I decided to return for the first time in two years. There were some differences this time around. For one, the festival was held in a different building on the fairgrounds than in previous years. I was also looking forward to eating Black Forest Cake like in other years only to find that the bakery that had participated in previous years was nowhere to be found. In fact, I saw fewer baked goods on sale this time around, which was a disappointment.
There were a few high points. There was this polka band who did polka versions of various pop, rock, and reggae songs. I only managed to do videos of just two of the songs. This video shows the band doing a polka version of Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child of Mine.”
The polka band closed their set with their unique polka version of Bob Marley’s “Jammin’,” which they sung as “Germans.”
I took some still pictures during my time there. I didn’t buy anything other than food (I ate a bratwurst with sauerkraut for lunch) and drinks (mainly Diet Pepsi) because I’m still trying to watch my money. I basically did some window shopping of items I couldn’t afford to buy and watched people dance. I even checked out a Punch & Judy puppet show for the first time since elementary school. (I remember that my school had a puppet troupe do a Punch & Judy show when I was in the first or second grade. I remember it was on a Saturday morning because my mother took me to that show. It was the only time I ever recall my school having a puppet show on a Saturday. The only other thing I remember about that Punch & Judy show was that the puppets hit each other with sticks.) Here are the photos I took.
Here’s a stall in the women’s restroom with—not one—but two toilets.
I arrived in the early afternoon and I thought it was filled with people even then. I left about an hour or two before sunset and I saw that a long line of people waiting to get inside of the festival was forming outside of the building.
I had opted to drive the car to the North Linthicum light rail stop then take the light rail to the Maryland State Fairgrounds. I did this mainly because I’m currently driving an old car that has 220,000 miles on it and I’m getting less enthusiastic about driving on the major highways mainly because of the crazy drivers that are out there. I’ll drive on a major highway to get somewhere if I have to but if there is a public transportation alternative, I’d rather use that and leave the driving to someone else. While I was switching stops in Baltimore in order to take the light rail back to North Linthicum, I noticed a Lime Scooter just sitting there waiting for someone to rent it. I’ve been seeing these scooters scattered all over the Washington, DC area and now I’m seeing them in Baltimore as well.
For the second year in a row I took part in Maker Faire NoVa, which was held on the campus of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Ironically, nearly a week after this event was held, I got word that the company that was responsible for Maker Faire NoVa and all of the other Maker Faires held all over the world, Maker Media, had abruptly shut down and laid off all of its staff. I’m glad that Maker Faire NoVa happened before the closing of Maker Media since there were so many people who took part in it.
I was working with Phil Shapiro, who had sent in three proposals to Maker Faire NoVa and they were all accepted. I was sent to work one of the booths—which was about how one can get a computer for $60 if other people in the community pool their money and buy used computers from a certain place in bulk. I decided to show off my book, The Cash-Strapped Person’s Guide to Thriving in the Digital Age, at that booth since the theme of my book dovetails nicely with the message of that booth. Here are a couple of sample books and a bunch of promo postcards I had printed up.
On the way to the event we stopped by this bicycle rack that was located in an office park because it looked pretty cool from the highway. They are bikes one can rent from a company called BECO bluebike.
One of Phil Shapiro’s proposals that Maker Faire NoVa had accepted was a demonstration for a new game that Phil had recently invented called Thunk. The next picture shows the props used in Thunk as they were loaded in the trunk of Phil’s car.
We arrived to see the statue of George Mason all decked out in steampunk clothing.
The next set of pictures show one of the booths that were assigned to Phil and it was also the same booth where I staffed. Like I wrote earlier, it was a display on how a group of people in the community could bulk order used computer equipment from certain companies and each person could end up with getting a decent Linux computer for $60. I also displayed my book and handed out postcards while I was there.
I had one of the computers run some of my animation files. (You can view the animation that’s depicted in this photograph right here.)
There was a display that had a couple of flyers regarding “The Most Affordable Computer.” One was information that Phil wrote about how it’s possible to get a computer legally for as low as $60. The other was an article that The Washington Post did about him back in the 1990s when he lived in Arlington and he would give used computer equipment a new home with low-income families.
I had my own book on display along with a promo postcard and the paper version of Phil’s proposal on how one can get an affordable computer.
The good news was that booth got plenty of attention. Now for the bad news: Because that booth was located near the larger information booth that’s located in the middle of the floor of the building that we were in, I was inundated with so many people asking me where a certain area was located or a certain building. I literally couldn’t answer people because I wasn’t among the organizers of Maker Faire NoVa and I’m not very familiar with the layout of George Mason University’s Fairfax campus. It got frustrating because these people weren’t interested in the topic of the display (I tried to hand out a few postcards and papers but to no avail) and I had to frequently point towards the information booth.
The second booth that Phil took out was on making 4K videos. He had lined up another friend who would staff it but that friend turned out to be a no-show. Unfortunately that second booth was located too far away from the booth that I was working at so I couldn’t even pull double duty and staff both at the same time. (I could have pulled it off it they were adjacent to each other instead of each being located about a 100 feet away.) Ultimately Phil decided to let that one go and take down the display a few hours early.
The third booth was located outside on the campus grounds. It was where Phil had demonstrated his game Thunk. Here’s a still photo of the booth setup.
I also shot a short video of the game Thunk in action as well as a few other displays that included a 3D-printed Rube Goldberg-style display, jugglers juggling balls, and robots (including ones that resembled R2-D2 from Star Wars).
Apparently the Thunk booth was the one that got the most attention, which was great for Phil. He shot his own videos of Thunk at the Maker Faire NoVa.
You can see other prototypes of his game in action on his YouTube channel right here and here.
There was even a book signing at Maker Faire NoVa. Sylvia Martinez was promoting her book Invent to Learn. Phil took time out from demonstrating his Thunk game to buy the book and have it signed by the author.
There were a variety of booths ranging from 3D printers to sewing to robots. I tried to visit as many of the booths I possibly could during breaks but that event was so massive that I’m sure I probably missed a few. The event was spread out to over three different buildings on campus plus there were booths set up on the grounds as well. I also saw plenty of people dressed in costumes—especially ones depicting various Star Wars characters.
This booth had an interesting idea: You can use a 3D printer to print the parts for your own 3D printer. In other words, you can use a 3D printer to make a new 3D printer.
There was an area where people of all ages were encourages to take apart various electronic devices in order to see how they work.
There was a re-creation of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor area done in LEGO.
Someone had done a LEGO re-creation of Diagon Alley from the Harry Potter books, which even included the Knight Bus. The details of this display were really awesome to see in real life.
I also walked around campus where I saw a few interesting things, such as this statue.
The last three photos show the only thing I purchased at this year’s Maker Faire NoVa. It’s a handcrafted soap that has a rubber unicorn duck embedded in it. I paid $5 for it. It looks pretty small but I thought it was really pretty and I fell in love with it.
I did so much walking at that event that I was literally sore for the next two days. I didn’t begin to recover until the third day after Maker Faire NoVa. I really enjoyed this event as much as I did last year. Given the news of Maker Media’s demise, only time will tell if there will ever be another Maker Faire NoVa (or something similar with a different name).
Last week I learned that Grumpy Cat passed away. She was only seven years old. Her death was announced on Twitter with this message:
We are unimaginably heartbroken to announce the death of our beloved Grumpy Cat.
Despite care from top professionals, as well as from her loving family, Grumpy encountered complications from a recent urinary tract infection that unfortunately became too tough for her to overcome. She passed away peacefully on the morning of Tuesday, May 14, at home in the arms of her mommy, Tabatha.
Besides being our baby and a cherished member of the family, Grumpy Cat has helped millions of people smile all around the world—even when times were tough.
Her spirit will continue to live on through her fans everywhere.
Grumpy’s Family—Tabatha, Bryan, and Chyrstal
Grumpy Cat’s death was covered by the mainstream media both here in the U.S. and abroad.
Back in 2014 I was teaching myself how to use Inkscape, which is the free open source alternative to Adobe Illustrator. In the process I did some tracing over photos of animals who became Internet celebrities. One was of Boo the World’s Cutest Dog (along with his older brother and best friend Buddy). The other was of Grumpy Cat, which you can see below.
I later uploaded that digital drawing to OpenClipArt.org, where you can download it and use it for free.
Earlier this year Boo passed away and I devoted a Throwback Thursday post to that pooch where I mentioned that Inkscape graphic I did of Boo and Buddy. I never thought that in the same year I would be devoting another Throwback Thursday post to Grumpy Cat while discussing some of the Grumpy Cat-related creative projects I did but that’s the way it goes.
Like Boo, Grumpy Cat also got her start on social media. (Yes, that cat was definitely female.) She was born with feline dwarfism and she had an underbite, both of which contributed to her looking like she had a permanent scowl on her face. When her owners posted her photos online, people soon began using them to create memes, several of which have been posted on Metro News as the 30 most iconic Grumpy Cat memes.
I even did a meme of Grumpy Cat myself back in 2017 when I made fun of the sudden celebrity of Danielle Bregoli (also known as “Bhad Bhabie”) whose defiant retort to Dr. Phil when she appeared as a guest on his TV show went viral: “Cash me outside, how bow dah?” Here is the meme, which I did in Adobe Photoshop.
I tried uploading the meme to various Facebook and Twitter discussions about Bhad Bhabie but I couldn’t get the meme to take off in a viral way so I gave up after about a week or so of trying.
I also incorporated Grumpy Cat in a drawing I did once. Here is some background. Back in 2013 I went to Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School in Baltimore (link is NSFW) where the model for that evening was a burlesque performer named Lady Satine. I took part in a contest where we had to do a drawing where we incorporated Lady Satine and a cat. So I drew Grumpy Cat protesting “Lady Satine laid on a box I was in once. It was awful!”
My drawing failed to make it to the finals but I still had a blast drawing the two of them together.
Then there was the time when I made a meme that poked fun at Ann Coulter in the wake of her poking fun at then-First Lady Michelle Obama’s efforts to publicize the plight of the 300 Nigerian girls who were kidnapped by a terrorist group Boko Haram. I promptly posted that meme on Twitter.
In the meantime I followed Grumpy Cat on all of the social media sites and I still have a DVD copy of the movie Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever, which I play around the holidays about once a year or so. A couple of years ago I purchased this small stuffed Christmas Grumpy Cat plush that I now display underneath my small Christmas tree during the holidays.
One Halloween I purchased a Grumpy Cat hat from a temporary Halloween store, printed a few sheets of paper that had slogans that one would find in a Grumpy Cat meme and I went to a couple of Halloween parties dressed as Grumpy Cat.
I ended up wearing that hat again just a couple of years later when I participated in the Women’s March on Washington the day after the inauguration of President Donald Trump. The march organizers were putting out the word that people should come to the march wearing knitted pink pussycat hats. I got the word of this march on such short notice that there was no way I could knit something up in less than a week. I ended up taking my Grumpy Cat hat out of storage and wearing that instead.
I also wore that hat at the Women’s March the following year.
I even read a few issues of the comic book series The Misadventures of Grumpy Cat (And Pokey!). I found the series pretty amusing.
Grumpy Cat was probably one of the few famous felines that I actually liked. I have an allergy to cats so I can never keep one as a pet. As a result, I ended up liking dogs better and I’ve even stayed with a few dogs over the years with no problems. I think Grumpy Cat’s perpetual scowl and the sarcastic memes that her face generated really resonated with me.
Grumpy Cat’s online fame even inspired me to think about an online project that almost became a reality. Back in 2013 I thought about creating a Facebook page for my pet hedgehog Spike because he was incredibly photogenic and I thought that he had a chance at being an Internet celebrity. I felt that the fact that he was a hedgehog instead of the usual dog or cat would only increase his chances of becoming famous. I was going to launch his Facebook page in late November, when most people tend to be home for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. As to whether Spike would’ve ever become as famous as Grumpy Cat is pure speculation now because I was never able to put that plan into action due to the fact that Spike died in September of that year.
Grumpy Cat’s online photos turned into memes led to a bunch of spinoff products that were profitable to her owners but there was also some controversy over her fame. There were accusations that Grumpy Cat’s initial fame stemmed from a meme whose joke was stolen from a comic strip. There were also accusations that Grumpy Cat was being exploited by being forced to make numerous public appearances all over the U.S. and in a few other countries as well. A writer for Jezebel summed up his one and only meeting with Grumpy Cat in person with this headline: I Met Grumpy Cat and It Was Fucking Abysmal.
Since Grumpy Cat is now deceased all of those exploitation allegations are moot. Regardless of how you personally feel about Grumpy Cat’s huge amount of public exposure, she had generated a log of spinoff products in her short life, most of which sold very well. In fact, I saw an article a few days ago that had this headline: Grumpy Cat’s owner is facing a major financial loss—there’s no insurance for pet influencers. There’s no denying that Grumpy Cat’s family will be taking a major financial hit because, for the past few years, they had basically lived off of the revenue that Grumpy Cat generated. In contrast, the owner of the late Boo the World’s Cutest Dog works for Facebook so she had a career to fall back on when her dog died earlier this year. I guess the moral of that story is that if you have a pet who has become a celebrity, always make sure that you have a job or some alternate source of income that’s completely unrelated to your pet because one day your pet will die and your finances could end up in dire straits if you don’t have any contingency plans for that event.
In addition to the hat, DVD, and Christmas plush that I purchased, there were plenty of other Grumpy Cat products I saw on the store shelves and wrote about in this blog over the years. I photographed just some of the ones I saw on store shelves.
Originally posted on March 29, 2014.
Originally posted on July 1, 2015.
Originally posted on April 20, 2015.
Originally posted on August 12, 2014.
Finally, here’s a photo of two plushies—one is based on Boo and the other is based on Grumpy Cat. And both of them have now crossed that Rainbow Bridge in 2019.
Originally posted on July 28, 2014.
I recently completed a crocheted amigurumi fox that I made especially for the annual auction at my church last Saturday. It wasn’t easy. I had started making the fox but I had only managed to complete the head and ears when my church was looking for items to donate. I decided to donate a few hats I had recently made with my knitting looms along with the amigurumi bunny that I had made last spring. (It was also the same bunny that I submitted to the Retro Town Fair that was held during the Greenbelt Labor Day Festival and I won a third place ribbon in the Needlework category that was based on both that bunny and another crocheted amigurumi that I had also submitted to that fair.)
Even though I hadn’t finished the fox, I decided to submit that fox in the auction as well. I figured that having a deadline would push me to finish that fox. Unfortunately I hadn’t predicted that I would have work where I’m currently helping a therapist with the preparations for a series of webinars that she’s giving to teachers, counselors, and administrators of the DC public school system. With that work I wasn’t able to pace myself with the crochet fox project. On top of it there was my ongoing participation in Inktober this month.
As a result, I literally spent most of my free time this past week doing a lot of crocheting so I could finish this fox on time. I was sewing the various body parts together just a few hours before the start of the auction. I finally finished with sewing the head to the body just one hour before the auction began. I managed to squeeze in some time taking photos of this fox before I headed off to church.
I used a pattern that I downloaded for free from the Craft Passion site. What really slowed me down was that there were times when I had to alternate between orange yarn, black yarn, and white yarn, so I was constantly changing yarns. I was literally getting stressed out as I was finishing this fox just hours before the auction.
I also managed to take some photos of the hats I had knitted using the knitting loom. Unlike the fox, I had been knitting these hats over the past six months or so. Those hats went on sale with hats and mittens that were made my other church members. Our church has a tradition where it sells hats and mittens starting with the auction and it continues to sell these items after Sunday service until mid-December. Whatever doesn’t get sold is ultimately donated to homeless shelters and other groups that help the poor.
I was totally shaken as I arrived at the church and dropped off my handcrafted items. I started to eat the finger foods that the church provided. Between the stress and the food that I ate, I began to feel physically sick. I ended up leaving the auction early without bidding on anything. I’m not disappointed at not being able to bid on anything mainly because I’m still financially struggling and I really have to be very stringent about watching my money. At least I managed to shoot this photo of my bunny and fox on display together before I left.
I later learned that they were both sold so I’m happy about that. After what I went through, I vow that I will never again put any handcrafted items up for an upcoming auction or a sale of any kind unless it is fully complete or is about 90 percent complete. I had put unnecessary stress on myself and it just wasn’t good for me.
Earlier this month I went to this event at the Artist & Craftsman Supply store in Hyattsville where there was a special free workshop on creating your own rainbow clothes especially for Pride Month. All you needed to do was to supply your t-shirts, bags, or hats. If you forgot to bring one, you could buy one from the store itself. I ended up paying around $3 for a blank white t-shirt so I could participate.
Basically we used a variety of different fabric paint spray along with stencils and fabric markers to create our unique rainbow clothes and accessories. I took a few photos during the workshop itself.
The last photos in this post are about my own t-shirt that I designed myself. The next photo shows the t-shirt as a work in progress.
The next photo shows me using the blow dryer in order to make the t-shirt dry faster. (The fact that it was raining outside that day made it imperative that I try to dry the t-shirt as much as possible before I could even walk back to my car.)
Here is my completed t-shirt just a few weeks after that workshop.
Here’s the back of the t-shirt, which isn’t that interesting mainly because I used fabric paint spray instead of the tye-dye that I usually do with these kinds of projects. Plus it would’ve made the t-shirt drying that much longer and difficult since I had to carry it back to my car in the rain.
Last, but not least, is a selfie of me modeling that t-shirt, which reads “Pride Not Prejudice.”
Sagittarius Dolly 
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