Rantings and Ravings

By Sun Advocate

I just came in from an attempt to make a frame for one of my paintings. It is a disaster. I just don’t have the measuring genes in my body.
I have never done well in accurately measuring things. I know from grade school that rulers and tape measures are divided up in evenly spaced marks. I just can’t always remember what each of those little things mean.
It drives my husband nuts when I help him. He asks me for the measurement and I will give him a number like, “Well, it’s two tics past the 16 inch mark. Not the big tic but the little ones, you know.”
He knows the exact size his arm is and can use it almost as accurately as a ruler. I have no idea what length my arm is but I can also use my body to measure. I have to hold my arm up to whatever I want to measure and then hold it in the exact same position until I get it to where I want to transfer my measurement to.
We, as women have learned that we don’t really need to know our body measurements like men do. When men buy clothes they buy their jeans and pants by their actual waist and inseam measurement. Women have to figure out the secret manufactures code. There is no real rhyme or reason to the code, but we try to guess.
I wear a size 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11. At one store I wear a two. I like that store! I also wear medium, large and XL as well as the wonderful one size fits nobody.
I would also be a really bad witness at a crime scene if I would have to describe someone by their height. Being 5’4″ tall, most men look taller than me. My description would be that they are a little bit taller or a lot taller than me.
I am always amazed when I hear an APB and they will say that the suspect is 5’8″.They don’t know who he is and someone got a quick look at him while ducking under a counter and they can narrow down his height that accurately?
I am going back out to the garage to try and salvage my frame project. I tried to make the frame for my largest unframed painting. I have six more various smaller paintings that need frames.
With luck I might be able to figure out how to measure my frame pieces by the time I cut the boards for the smallest painting.