So, I loved the book (in the back it had instructions for making a Japanese doll house with little sliding walls and a garden that I always kind of hoped I'd get smart enough to make--never happened), and the little umbrella made me think of that book, and it also made me think of this calendar I had. I have never cut the pictures out of a calendar once the year is over--NEVER. Except with this one. 
So, let me use the following conversation to sum up:
Sparkle: "Is there any way to make paper kinda waterproof?"
Friend: "Well, you can use polyurethane."
Sparkle: "Isn't that the stuff that makes you swoon when you use it? Anything less strong?"
Friend: "Well, you could try lacquer."
Sparkle: "Yeah?"
Friend: "You could get lacquer that you spray on."
Sparkle: "OOH!"
Friend: "Why are you asking about this?"
Sparkle: "Oh, just because."
Friend: "Your mysterious little projects make me nervous."
Sparkle: "Ah, well."
Friend: "What are you doing?"
Sparkle: "Nothing in particular, really. Why would it make you nervous?"
Friend: "Remember when I went outside that once and you'd covered my truck with dinosaurs and egyptian figures on magnets?"
Sparkle: "Sure. What about it?"
The thing is. I like to have little projects. Stupid ones, usually. And I usually don't like to talk about them until they're done.
So, to sum up further (which I know does not count as summing up at all): Today, I have a Sombrilla Forest in my front yard. I've got my cocktail parasols (or sombrilllllllllllllas as it says on the package, and I like that so they're sombrillllllllllllas) all spray-lacquered and drying and ready to deploy. I'm not positive how they'll be deployed--possibly in the flowerboxes and maybe as a mobile for a friend. We'll see how much time I have to fool around before I have to get back to work. So. Here's the Sombrilllllllla Forest, and let a smile be your sombrillllllllllla today.
Sombrillllllllllllllla Forest!
About a month ago, the Cake posted a photo of a cocktail parasol that captured my imagination. Briefly, it made me think longingly of a colorful, potent cocktail. But then, my thoughts spiraled off in a predictably circuitous fashion to this book I loved when I was a kid-- "Miss Happiness and Miss Flower" by Rumer Godden. The dolls in the book had little cocktail umbrellas for parasols. The first book below is the original cover artwork, which I prefer to the most recent version's cover--somehow the dark blue, shadowy overtones put me in mind of the evil ventriloquist's dummy/midget episode of Dr. Who:
