08-13-2000

This afternoon as I was prattling on about these really neat paper dragons Richard and I have been putting together, my mom wondered aloud exactly when she and my dad would get to see them, since she's been hearing about them ever since we started on them, weeks ago. I caught the hint, a bit belatedly, and invited them over for dinner since I was in a mood to cook anyway (the close proximity of that wonderful produce stand just off the freeway inspires me), and it's always better to take advantage of those moods with guests.

This meant, of course, that now Richard and I had to finish the remaining dragons before they came over, but there wasn't much left to do. We've been working on them ever since he came over to my house one evening with the book in his hands - something he'd spotted at Borders books and thought might be fun to do. I was, of course, thrilled. These are not simple little paper figures you punch out and fold. They've required hours of work, carefully cutting and gluing. The authors of the book apparently felt that instructions were for wimps, so we've had to muddle through most of them on our own. Not that that has made it any less fun, although we've joked about our exciting lifestyle - evenings spent hunched over the coffee table, scissors in hand, smearing glue with just the right touch onto stiff paper cutouts that slowly have transformed themselves into colorfully detailed three-dimensional dragons.

Making paper dragons is obviously not everyone's choice for entertainment, but somehow it just seems to fit Richard and I. We're both dragon fans, and our tastes run more toward the eclectic anyway. Between the two of us, we've got a small assortment of gargoyles - a collection which I hope will grow over the years. We've also found all sorts of things in the Dancing Dragons catalog that we think the new house will need. I suppose we'll have to forgo perching gargoyles on the roof corners as drain spouts, and the iron dragon lawn ornament might be a bit much, but the 'Here there be dragons' sign will hang outside on the gate for all to see, and there's some dragon house numbers in that catalog that are awfully tempting...

The paper dragons are all lined up on a shelf right now, waiting til I get the time to string them together into a mobile, which will dangle somewhere in the new house. But this isn't the end of our construction. Wandering through a toy store last weekend while shopping for birthday presents for three year olds, we spotted our next project. It's a puzzle clock, the cardboard formed and shaped to look as if it's carved wood, decorated with ivy, and two little elves at the base. Small wonder we took one look at the box, then at each other, and then marched it right to the cash register. It's us.