Hello Goth!

Iris told me that her new style ideal is a t-shirt emblazoned with a skull and crossbones adorned with a hair bow. Several manufacturers make them; some even come with pink sequined bows. I offered to buy her one but she doesn't literally want those shirts. She just likes the ironic humor of melding frothy girliness with the darkness of goth.

I thought it looked like Hello Kitty Gone Goth. She told me to shorten it to "Hello Goth!" Then she told me that she would prefer to call it "Girly Goth". A coworker asks how this differs from "Perky Goth" and "Gothic Lolita". Well, it is not a relentlessly upbeat as the former and has none of the sexual overtones of the latter.

May I present "Hello Goth!" the mommy and me edition? I made three of these skirts using two old sportshirts and three yards of stretch cotton poplin.
In the back view, you can see how I incorporated the hems of the shirts for an uneven hemline effect.
The pocket is too shallow to be functional now.
I also kept the sleeve placket just for fun.
In the lower left corner, you can see a sliver of skirt #3, which we gave away to someone* who admired Iris' skirt.
I've been sewing a lot of black and gray for my girly goth, including the Iris-sized blouse made of black cotton/lycra jersey with semi-sheer black dotted Swiss sleeves.

It wasn't until I used up 3 of the 3.5 yards of the stretch poplin before I realized it was perfect for Vogue 1220, a dress I really want to make up for spring. I went back to SAS Fabrics to see if they had more, but all I found was a 2 yard piece of it in black--not enough to make the dress. I will have to continue searching.
* I don't normally sew for people outside of close friends and family. But skirt #3 went to a doctor who saw me through a period of depressing and life-threatening illness. I strongly suspect that she spent more time with me than she was able to bill my insurance company for; I made an exception.

In 2011, I have sewn 15 things and blogged 6. That's a better ratio than 2010.

Related posts:
The first 4-tiered skirt
on a zoo outing.

Serengeti Traffic Report

There are not that many roads in Serengeti National Park. During high season, the roads are full of safari outfitters, especially when the animals are active near the road. However, traffic is so much more courteous than on the 405.
We saw many types of vehicles serving visitors on different size budgets. Most western visitors ride in pop-top 4x4s (Toyota and Range Rover) with 5-9 seats holding 4-5 passengers and one driver/guide. Western students and visitors from India and other parts of Africa may ride in larger vehicles like the bus below. The roads are narrow and guides are allowed to go off-road only to pass.
This is the cause of the traffic jam. I thought that watching a leopard stalk a herd of wildebeasts and zebras was a reasonable cause for a traffic delay. ;-)
The drivers/guides are highly incentivized to drive courteously. Not only will they be fined and/or banned for breaking the government rules, but they are also subject to the cold shoulder from other guides.

We were there on vacation, but the Serengeti is a workplace for the guides. We saw cell phone towers on top of every sizable hill and on many of the kopjes (granite intrusions that form hillocks on the Serengeti plains) as well. The guides were constantly on the phone and radio with one another with news of animal sightings. Even if they don't work for the same outfitter, they help each other out.

When there is an animal by the road, each driver gives their group enough time to observe, take photos, and then moves out of the way for the next vehicle. If a guide acts discourteously and hogs more than their fair share of animal viewing time, do you think anyone else will tell him/her about subsequent animal sightings? Their career will be over.

The worst traffic jams we encountered were at this leopard sighting and the lion sighting in the prior post. Most of the time, we didn't see much more than the four vehicles in our convoy. One guide said that, when a pride of lions actively hunts for prey, every vehicle working in the Serengeti rushes in. That's how he learned that there were ~150 vehicles working on the Serengeti.

We didn't see a kill. But we didn't encounter monster traffic jams either. We did see the big five (elephant, lion, leopard, cape buffalo and rhino). In fact, we saw 4 of the big 5 our first day. Rhinos are rarer and we only saw two, and only in the Ngoro Ngoro crater.

BTW, check out the green lushness of the Serengeti highlands in December. That took Bad Dad and I by surprise.

How close do you get?

Many people asked, "How close do you get to the animals?"

This close.
We had to use the zoom a bit to get this pride of lionesses resting in the tree.
Their cubs were nearby, playing king of the mountain on this log. A herd of elephants walked by at just the right moment. The black dots in the background plains are wildebeasts and zebras.
When we first encountered this pride of lions, consisting of 12 lionesses, 10 cubs and a napping male, they were all sacked out.
A couple of the lionesses made halfhearted attempts to hunt a cape buffalo, but the others just couldn't be bothered. Our guide said that it would take about 4 lionesses to hunt and kill an animal that size. It looked like this pride had eaten well recently and had no desire to hunt again so soon.
We went during high season on the Serengeti. It's when you see the most animals.

BTW, we went to the national parks, where the guides adhere to strict rules of conduct. We cannot go off-road to chase animals the way guides in private game parks do. This is better for the animals because they know that, if they want privacy, they need only to leave the road. This is less stressful for them and for their young.

People who run tours in private game parks tout how much closer you can get to the animals. We don't feel any desire to get closer than we experienced. And we don't want to stress out the animals any more than we have to.