little blue scooter: march 15, 2002 - june 28, 2005

little blue scooter was born model #chf50p, near tokyo, in 2002. The offspring of a well-established multi-million yen company, her childhood was blighted by her distant parents and she was brought up mostly by a surrogate mother in boston.

she attended public school, which she hated, an ordeal which was offset by the moment she first saw michael caine ride a vespa in the original version of alfie.

little blue scooter was the apple of her owner’s eye for over four years. she led the way in promoting alternative modes of transportation around the boston metropolitan area and always kindly allowed strangers to give her a try. little blue scooter will remain in the hearts of all who rode her, and will be remembered for her unique style and nerdy-chic image around town.

little blue scooter was, at first sight, the antithesis of many of the mopeds out on the road. plastic-sided, not the speediest, and cheap - she was more like a best friend than a motorized vehicle.

yet little blue scooter’s uncompromising reliability transformed the face of travel all the way from boston to arlington to wellesley and back.

her regular evening cruises ran three to four nights a week and in 2004 she became the godmother to many a scooter offspring in the neighborhood, taking her passion for sidestreets to the wider world.

right from the outset, little blue scooter changed the rules. she could go miles without a fill up, and when she needed fuel it only cost $2 to top off her tank.

two nights ago, little blue scooter was stolen. she was parked in her usual spot, chained to the railing outside ann and dabney’s door. ann and dabney later learned that next door neighbors heard noises sometime between midnight and 2am but didn’t leave their cushy little couch to investigate. her whereabouts are now unknown, and police have no leads.

little blue scooter leaves behind her heartbroken owner ann, and her partner dabney, who was too scared to ride her.

there will be a traditional irish wake held in little blue scooter's honor next week at its former residence.

strange men and sticky substances

ann and dabney came back from new york on monday evening, happy to see feidler, who stayed home with ashbloem in their apartment while they were away. getting ready for bed that night, dabney noticed some mysterious goo on her side of the bed. no, not the kind of goo you are thinking. it was black. and sticky. and formed strange linear patterns. ann and dabney changed the sheets and didn't think much more about it.

a few days later, they stumbled across a strange camera in their spare bedroom. in an attempt to figure out who it belonged to, they scrolled through the photos, hoping to recognize someone they knew. after a few photos, they began to recognize people (a few of them anyway).

then they recognized their apartment.



and then their bed.



and then this.

warning: very long post coming up where ann and dabney talk about new crafts and old friends

superette returned to boston last night after an absolutely fantastic weekend in new york.

on friday night the lovely people at sockit projects and fred flare hosted a pre-renegade craft fair mixer at supreme trading in williamsburg. a mere hint of a rumor about amy sedaris providing cupcakes for the event meant that ann and dabney arrived promptly at 6:01 pm, well in advance of other arrivals. although the funny woman herself wasn't in attendance that night (something about traveling for her upcoming movie, blah, blah, blah, whatever) she had left behind a batch of homemade cupcakes. the best part is that they were decorated with cut out photos of herself dressed up as all the various characters from strangers with candy. ann and dabney were happy to snag two and stashed the decorations away in their bag.



while happily munching away on the cupcake in one hand, and sipping a gin and tonic in the other, ann received a tap on her shoulder. she turned around to find her friend sumana from high school -- who she hadn't seen in about 15 years. it's rare enough to run into old friends in a strange bar in a strange city thousands of miles away from where you went to high school. but it's even rarer when your graduating class had only THIRTEEN people in it.


sumana and ann

and it gets even weirder when you realize that you are now pursuing similar ventures. because sumana, along with brother nick and another high school friend roy, have started a fantastic stationery company called imaginary friends. they have a very smart and creative line of cards called haikudos, where traditional greeting card sayings are replaced by... and this is brilliant folks...haikus. it's enough to make girlladyfriend, and her annual haiku contest, proud. here's a sample:

A baby's bottom- Nine whole months in the baking, A cute pair of buns. Congratulations

The open-backed gown, Everyday wear for luring Hunky physicians. Get Well Soon

sumana and her group of friends made for a great party in and of themselves. ann and dabney wound up chatting with devon of ihotto for hours about one of their favorite topics: japan. it turns out that the three all share a love for japanese crafts, 100 yen stores, and cell phone charms. ihotto, run by devon and her fiancee, peter, sells these great road trip t-shirts that are worth checking out. erika of the very fabulous mini minimarket in williamsburg was great to talk to and had lots of advice about what it takes to run a store. ann also met her new filipina sister, des, of creme fame.


devon and erika

over the next two days ann and dabney were camped out in mccarren park with their wares.



they were so pleased by the positive response to their things (how gratifying after sewing for weeks alone in the batcave) and were pleasantly surprised when they sold out of most things by the end of the day on saturday. that this was a happy problem was not lost on ann and dabney, but it still made them have nightmares about sitting in front of an empty table all day long on sunday. superette got a few nibbles from stores about carrying some items. and a woman from a nationally-distributed magazine came by to talk about featuring their sewn crochet hook case in their next issue. cross your fingers.

in their spare time, ann and dabney were able to run around and look at the other booths. the amount of ultra-talented people in attendance was both inspiring and humbling. in particular, they loved julie meredith's graphic cards at etui, maryink's totes and t-shirts, jill killjoy's kitty wrist pincushion, amy tavern's silver circle jewelry, and last but not least, the momomoogie booth. in addition to being a fantastic illustrator, stella im hultberg is also just quite possibly the cutest woman on the face of the earth. ann was also so happy to finally place an order for a belt buckle from erica at steel toe studios.

our booth neighbors were the collective girls from the polka dot life, whose website dabney has admired for quite some time. ann and dabney were very lucky they were there. whenever the wind threatened to carry superette's things (and at one point the entire booth) to the opposite end of the park, a few kind souls ran over to retrieve goods in flight. thanks again guys.

superette debut

thanks to everyone who came and visited ann and dabney today at the renegade craft fair, and especially to those that purchased something. they really enjoyed talking to all of you, and were so pleased by the response to their stuff.

for new visitors, keep checking back at the site. ann and dabney will post more in the upcoming week about available merchandise and how to order.

in the meantime, here's a few of superette's happy customers.

superette preview

here's a preview of some of the items that ann and dabney are bringing to the renagade craft fair this weekend. click on any photo to enlarge.

baby bibs & tees


passport covers


small, medium and large modular bags


mobile phone accessories


pencil cases

last minute prep

brooklyn or bust

at long last, ann and dabney are headed down to brooklyn for the renegade craft fair this weekend! if you (or any of your friends or family) are going to be in new york this weekend, please go visit them at:

mccarren park
on june 25th and 26th
in brooklyn, ny
10:30am - 5:00pm
booth 79

the park is located right down the street from the williamsburg bridge on bedford avenue. by train it is a couple of blocks away from the bedford avenue stop on the l train, and the nassau avenue stop on the g train.

at some point this week, superette will post a preview of inventory, so please check back in, if you are interested. ann and dabney already have had a lot of requests for certain items, so please know that they hope to start selling to friends and family after the fair.

superette thanks you for all the encouragement and support!

bbq boy

superette tips its hat to its favorite soulpatch-sporting son, golfin’ groom. over the weekend, golfin’ groom participated in a chicken wing eating challenge at st. louis’ famed buffalo wild wings. the challenge: to eat a dozen wings in the restaurant’s hottest sauce in under six minutes. Not only did golfin’ groom meet the challenge, he did it in three minutes – a new record! his picture, featuring his sauce-less chin and bib-less chest, now dons the walls of buffalo wild wings.

congratulations, golfin’ groom. way to go!

ann and dabney make it a hat trick

ann and dabney firmly believe that a day of eye strain, pin pricks and finger cramping merits a good stiff drink. so after sewing for hours on friday, they headed out with ashbloem to the red fez for a belt or two (or three, or four... ann and dabney were soon incapable of counting, especially since shots would appear mysteriously before them on the bar at random intervals).



there was some low- to medium-grade flirting with hot lesbian bartender that went something like this:

ashbloem: pssst. hey, hot lesbian bartender. you're sexy.
HLB: well, hello cleavage...

they also took pictures of themselves in the red fez that lives behind the bar, for no other reason than there actually is a red fez at the red fez.



thanks to terra, ann also had the pleasure of attending a game at good old fenway park on the most of beautiful of sunday afternoons. see the account of their day in the sun on the newly re-dubbed interravision.

new day, new project

as crazy bride's matron of honor, ann's latest project is a bridal shower. ever the modern couple, crazy bride and golfin' groom have opted for a coed event to ring in their upcoming nuptials. here is a peek at their superette-designed (and modified) invitation:

bac

knitters revolt

superette's favorite liberal wingnut recently sent ann and dabney a great website, which they thought they'd pass on. microrevolt provides needlecraft projects and ideas to protest labor abuses and the proliferation of corporate logos. try knitpro while you're there -- a web application that translates digital images into knit, crochet, needlepoint and cross-stitch patterns. such brilliance should not go unnoticed.

glug glug glug glug

ann and dabney were fine and sober thank you very much until the tonic fairy showed up at about 9:00pm last night. then the poker chips came out. and so did the big gulp gin & tonics. and then not only did ann and dabney fall off the wagon, the wagon was trampled underfoot in a stampede to the limes.

the perfect storm

rarely do ann and dabney experience such natural phenomena as they did this past weekend. boston had been collecting large quantities of energy - in the form of moisture and warm air - for days, and it was only a matter of time before the earth unleashed its fury. a confluence of factors contributed to the atmospheric weekend: boston pride, friend lindsey's birthday; and a wellesley reunion. each one of these things by themselves would have been license for ann and dabney to be naughty. but all combined they became a perfect storm of debauchery, the effects of which will be felt for a very long time.

ann and dabney wandered to the end of their block on saturday afternoon to watch the pride parade. the floats swept through like a huge, pulsing gay hurricane, and left a debris of confetti, rainbow-colored beads, and condoms in its wake.



later that night, ann and dabney hosted a party - the nor'easter of 2005 - for friends in town. freshly made margaritas flowed courteous of new aquaintance boston tara, who arrived as part of a larger entourage with nikki and averill. tara is straight out of boston's central casting. not only has her family owned a series of irish pubs, she teaches bartending at a local school. when told she was too cute to be single, she responded, "i'm wicked retahded when it comes to dating." ann and dabney loved meeting her.

perhaps because of those margaritas, and the champagne, and the gin & tonics, ann got a little grab-assy that night and decided to flirt with all the straight ladies in the crowd. sincere public apologies go out here to both terraism and lucy. mika was also a true delight and every bit the fabulous person that her blog suggests. you can read her account of the party here. likewise, ashbloem's fuzzy recollections and very funny regrets are here.

sunday was a total blur.

monday was lindsey's actual birthday and that afternoon was the calm in the eye of the storm. ann, dabney, lindsey and heloise spent the day at the leo martin driving range, swimming in lake waban, and eating ice cream at white mountain in wellesley. it was one of those glorious, epic summer days where you do exactly what feels good to do, right at the moment you want to do it.



the winds picked up again on monday night with bottles of wine and champagne smuggled into the do re mi karaoke cafe in allston. ann and dabney will let the photos tell the story.





there are just no words or possible earthly explanation for this next photo, but it is surely proof that nature was turned on its head this weekend.



rumbles of thunder could be heard back at ann and dabney's at the end of the night with more drinks and a round of the ever-popular game of "who can store the most change under their boobs?" all the smaller cup sizes wisely sat it out, which left a close contest between dabney, ashbloem and alice. everyone in the room thought that new mom alice was a ringer. ashbloem definitely had the most in quantity, but made the amateurish mistake of going for pennies instead of quarters (ann and dabney blame the move on her blonde roots). so dabney came through a winner with a full $4.30, baby!!! ann was so proud. all of those practice sessions really paid off.

it is now tuesday afternoon, and boston has turned both cool and calm. bags have been packed. friends have flown back home. ann and dabney will spend the rest of the week cleaning the wreck of their apartment and wringing out their flooded livers.

happy birthday lindsey, our favorite little stormcloud.

what's wrong with toe jam?

dabney has recently been in touch with her long lost childhood friend abby polk. despite being thick as thieves in elementary school in florida, amy and dabney lost touch when dabney's family up and moved to vermont before she entered the 7th grade. it was only through the miracle of google that they reconnected last year. now abby, along with her boyfriend sorin, is coming to boston and will stay the night on their way to maine for a wedding. after 18 years, dabney is ultra-curious about the whole person that amy has become and was pretty happy to hear that she is a documentary filmmaker. here she is, with sorin, at her sister's wedding this year.



dabney has many, many memories of abby and the rest of the polk clan. she practically lived at their house while growing up in talahassee. but her all time favorite recollection is the time that abby and dabney conspired to send mean valentines day cards to their male classmates in the 5th grade. they called them things like toe jam. in print. for valentine's day. alas, some traumatized 5th grader ratted them out, and ms. vincent and ms. plott made the two criminals spend the entire valentine's day party across the room with their heads down on their desks. dabney remembers their friends smuggling them candy.