If the Shoe Fits, Take it to Vegas!

Friday, August 3, 2007

Page 15

AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)

If the Shoe Fits, Take it to Vegas!

By J’AMY PACHECO

Every now and then, I come up dry in the column idea department and turn to my family for assistance.

“I need a column,” I usually announce. Often, the mere verbalization of the need will cause an idea to form – sometimes as a defensive measure when a particularly ludicrous idea is proposed.

More often, my husband or daughter will throw out something that eventually evolves into a column. This is one of them.

My daughter suggested I write about what it’s like when we’re getting ready for vacation. We’re headed to a doll convention in Las Vegas this week and not only are my daughter, mother and I taking classes, but I’m teaching one. There are themed meal functions for which my daughter insists on dressing in costume, and we’ve committed to donating one-of-a-kind dolls for use as table centerpieces as well as one for a charity auction.

This means we’ve spent nearly every night and weekend for about a month getting ready.

“Why don’t you write about how you get stressed out and cranky just before we go?” my helpful 11-year-old said.

This from the girl who insists on wearing a recreation of Elizabeth Swann’s red gown from the first “Pirates of the Caribbean” film for a Thursday luncheon.

They don’t make child-sized patterns for that voluminous dress, so I’ve not only been forced to stretch my sewing abilities to their pitiful limits, but I’ve had to essentially create my own pattern. No easy task for someone whose greatest skill lies in sticking tiny crystals on doll-sized shoes.

If making the gown for my daughter wasn’t challenging enough, I’ve also had to figure out how to turn a Barbie doll into a pirate, and others into a hippie and a gothic bride. (There’s something kind of creepy about putting a platinum blonde Barbie-girl in a black velvet wedding dress with a black veil topped by black rosebuds. No wonder I’m cranky.)

None of this touches upon my shoe duties. Somehow, somewhere in my life experience I picked up the desire to make spiffy Barbie-sized shoes. It started seven or eight years ago when I covered 10 pair of tiny pumps with crystals not much bigger than the period at the end of a sentence for a friend to give as gifts. In subsequent years, I figured out how to use modeling paste to make doll shoes look like tiny peacocks, or to adorn them with tiny cocktail glasses.

My specialty is taking ordinary plastic factory-made shoes and making them look sort of like jewelry for the foot. For some reason, other people want to know how to do this, so I’ll be teaching this class for the third year in a row.

This means I have to prepare a bunch of kits for students, make some new samples (because I tend to give my old ones away to anyone offering a compliment), prepare a handout – and try to figure out what to say.

Although it usually works out in the end, I’m always terrified to get up in front of a room filled with people who have paid money to hear what I have to say. I’m so afraid they’ll feel gypped that I buy door prizes and give them away periodically throughout the class. Who could think ill of a person who gives presents to strangers?

So yeah, I’m a little stressed out and more than a little cranky. I’ve got lists taped all over the place, half-packed suitcases on my bed, dolls covering my dining room table, and so many tiny crystals laying about that I wouldn’t be surprised to find some in my ears or belly button. (But who has time to look?)

The first time we attended this convention, a bellman opened the back of my mom’s SUV and remarked, “Geez, you people didn’t leave anything at home, did you?”

That’s what going to this convention is like. We’re lugging dolls, clothes, costumes, gifts, centerpieces – it’s a wonder there is room for us in the car.

But once we arrive, we’ll get to see online friends with whom we socialize just once a year. Oh, and we’ll get to go bowling at midnight in our pajamas one night, for although my bowling average is in the 20s, we’re entered in a tournament.

I’m stressed and cranky now, but that will change in a few hours. I’ll be in Las Vegas, hanging with my doll buddies, talking to strangers, taking fun classes, wearing my new Tinker Bell jammies in public and having fun.

Hopefully, I’ll leave the crankies at home…