How to make a Secret Compartment Book!

At my just recently ex-Audubon job, we received a donation of a bunch of old children's books. After conducting a e-bay/amazon/google search concerning the current value of first-edition "Tom Swift" (boy wonder from the 50s and 60s who does things like go to space and play cowboys and indians but for real) adventure novels, I was allowed to take one home. I promptly destroyed its literary value by turning into a cool, if somewhat sloppy, secret compartment book. You can make one too, if you want. Here is how:

You will need a book (hardcover is better) that either is really awesome (judging by its cover) or super-boring in case you want to hide things where no one will find them.

Also needed are an exacto knife (the sharper the better) some type of glue, a paintbrush, plastic wrap or a plastic bag, and heavy books. Felt is optional.

First mix whatever type of glue you have with a little bit of water, so it's thinner, but still not too runny. Wrap the front cover of the book and several of the beginning pages in plastic so they don't get glue on them. Paint the outsides of the remaining book pages with glue, on all three sides-- these are the sides of your book/box and need to be solid-- you won't be able to flip the pages anymore.

Next, put the book under several heavy books and wait for it to dry. This is important so it doesn't warp.

Once the book is dry, you can start attacking the pages with the exacto knife. Leaving yourself a margin of 2 or so inches (or whatever shape you want) start carving out the pages a few at a time. This part is lots of fun, but also pretty difficult. I am sort of an impatient person and probably went too fast, which led to some sloppiness in my final product, particularly around the corners. Go slow with the corners! After you've cut out all of the pages to the back cover, clean up the inside sides a little. This is also hard, it's tough to get a good angle to cut the raggedy paper.

Now, paint the inside sides with the glue/water to strengthen the box. If you want to add a felt lining, this is a good time to do it. I measured vaguely and then cut a piece of felt into five separate pieces (one for each of the sides and the bottom) that fit pretty well. I had a hard time getting the felt to stick with my glue/water mixture, so I broke out the gorilla glue. Not a good idea. It kind of dries in blobs, leading to further sloppiness. Next time, I will try a different, less extreme adhesive for the felt bits, or I will try to prop them up until they dry using toothpicks or something. It could be hard. Lemme know if you find a good gluing method for felt!

Now, with the first few decoy pages and the front cover still wrapped in plastic, put the book under heavy books again, for good measure. When the insides are mostly dry, you can open it up and put it somewhere your pets can't reach so the inside felt portion will dry. Stay away from gorilla glue.

Now you have a neat secret compartment box that wasn't purchased from Urban Outfitters. yay!

Red Crossing

This past weekend I decided to take a CPR/First Aid certification course with the Red Cross. My desire to do this came out of some convoluted ideas about being a good citizen and spur-of-the-moment decision making that a click or two and an idle moment on the internet can offer.

My class was held in a miserable windowless cinder block room deep in the boonies of Union City. Union City is one of those sad towns of central California you read about in Steinbeck novels, only not as romantic. There's a street sign (the kind on a stoplight, official and everything) that has two arrows pointing in different directions and reads "Target" and "Circut City". Like, this is Target and Circut City street?

Our instructor was a man named Dave, who seemed to use the class as a vehicle for telling gruesome personal anecdotes as much as a means to teach us CPR and first aid. Apparently, Dave had been the Sheriff/Chief of Police/miner of some kind in a small town in Utah for several years, and had also served as the interim EMT until real medical personnel could arrive from fifty miles away. "Yep," he said. "I have to tell y'all to use a breathing barrier cause that's what the Red Cross recommends. But lotsa times you don't have a breathing barrier, and you just gotta do mouth to mouth. Remember to plug the nose, or you'll get a face fulla boogers." Charming man, Dave. A lot of his stories sounded suspiciously like lies. He described giving someone the Heimlich maneuver (which they don't call the Heimlich maneuver, by the way) at an Outback Steakhouse after walking up to an old man choking on a shrimp. The way he described the scene, play by play, sounded exactly like the part in "Mrs. Doubtfire" when Robin Williams (disguised as the housekeeper Mrs. Doubtfire) saves Pierce Brosnan from choking on a shrimp. It's the pivotal scene in the movie, because all of the man-lady makeup comes off, and I remarked (kind of under my breath) after Dave told his story that it sounded just like Mrs. Doubtfire. He laughed uncomfortably, which I took to mean he was either an exaggerator or a liar. Perhaps both.

A lot of the class participants were there because they were teachers, or had to complete the course for work. There were two pregnant couples present, one with a particularly wild-eyed mother, who insisted on telling everyone that this was the second time she'd taken the course, (the first time was before they had their first baby) and that she never let anyone without a CPR certification NEAR her daughter! I can appreciate being cautious, but sometimes these things serve as forums for people to congratulate themselves on being responsible citizens. Which is a good thing, really. But I wish the shrill, self-righteous attitude didn't come with it. Everyone had an aunt or a coworker or had witnessed a stranger have some terrible accident. "This isn't group therapy, people," I felt like saying more than once, but didn't, because generally that makes one look like an asshole.

The CPR training itself was useful. I'd taken courses before, but it's been a long while. We got to practice on alien dummies and babies with removable faces. And on one another, which is always sort of awkward, even if you're just pretending to give the other person mouth-to-mouth, and instead are repeating "breath, breath" right over their faces. The first aid training was a little bit of a joke-- it reminded me of driver's ed in high school, when we watched episodes of "Red Asphalt" which were basically cautionary tales of brains and guts spilled across the highway. I mean, if I'm actually going hiking and my buddy Marvin falls and breaks his leg, I suppose I will be a bit better off having watched an instructional video. But not by much. In either scenario, I'd probably scream for help and avoid touching poor Marvin's leg if possible.

Sharks and their attacks have been a theme at our house the past few weeks (Bryan, boogie boarding, etc.). In honor of Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, our landlady Phyllis (who lives next door) had us over to watch Jaws. That's her in the costume. She made it herself, and is quite proud of it. I fell asleep halfway through in Phyllis' "Cadillac chair" (a nice, broken in Laze-Boy)

This is the most useful thing I learned this weekend, in reference to poisonous snakes that can bite you and make you die:

Red touching yellow, he's a deadly fellow.
Red touching black, he's a friendly Jack.

As always, watch out for snakes, sharks, and please, take CPR. It's for the children.