“Moom, is there some kind of table that I can use to put my sewing machine on?” She wanted to set up her sewing machine outside and the only table out in our hillbilly-style back yard is a tippy old thing that the GG stole from some state park back in his mis-spent youth (or something like that). It should have been a simple request. I *own* a so-called sewing table. I have owned a so-called sewing table since I was in high school. But where was it? I’ve been using my old childhood desk for a sewing table for many years. Could I have gotten rid of the sewing table? I couldn’t remember getting rid of it. But heck, that doesn’t mean anything. Who knows what fit of madness I may have had back in all the chaos of raising teenagers and running a youth theatre guild. I mean, back in those days, I considered myself lucky if I didn’t have to make an emergency run for toilet paper.

Oh where, oh where has my sewing table gone? Oh where, oh where could it be? Ahem. I dredged out my hazardous waste suit and put my headlamp on and headed down into the Landfill Dungeon. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I peered to the left into my so-called studio. The one I have been s-l-o-w-l-y and painfully picking away at cleaning out since I don’t know when. I was actually making progress until this summer when somebody put me into a blender. I have made enough progress in that room that I could walk down the middle of it and look around the perimeter. And see that the sewing table was not there.

Next stop? The “library”. The previous owners (think 25 years ago) took great pride in their re-do of the once loverly basement that is now the Landfill Dungeon. They built two whole walls of bookshelves down there. There was a table (twin to the ugly one in my kitchen) and I bet they had some nice comfy chairs down there too at one time. Hmm, maybe that’s what spawned all those duct tape easy chairs that seemed to grow in the Landfill Dungeon for so many years. Nowadays? Yes, there are plenty of books on those shelves. And magazines and old ammunition from WWI or whenever. And then there are moldy old boxes of papers all over the floor and old dead computers and various peripherals. And other artifacts of antiquity. No sewing table. Sigh. That left one place to look…

The Freakout Chamber!!! Not my favorite place in the universe. It was dark in there. I reached for the pull-chain that theoretically turns on the bare bulb light fixture. No dice. Oh yeah, I have to flip the switch at the bottom of the Dungeon stairs. Only with that light on will I venture into the Freakout Chamber. Alas. That is the room in which I found my sewing table. Covered with power saws and about an inch of dust that could probably be carbon-dated back to the Jurassic Age. No way was I gonna uncover that table today.

Mouse was able to devise her own solution, as you can see here. I am joking about this being similar to how sewers work in Senegal. I don’t really know. I think probably there are a few who sew outside but I bet many of them work from home or a shop. Mouse knows more about this subject than I do since she’s lived there. The truth is that each Senegalese tailor probably sets up shop as it is most convenient. Inside or out. You can check out Mouse’s blahg for what she’s making right now. She is so much more patient with the details than I ever was when I was young and sewed my own clothing. Sigh.

P. S. The guy in the photo is on a painting in my basement and, yes, I am afraid of it. I forget what its history is…

P.S. Now that he is on my blahg in an iPhone photo, he isn’t as scary as he is in the Landfill Dungeon. Hmmm. A new facebook profile photo?

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