The Knitting Rubicon

The Worst University Ever

2010-07-20T12:47:00.002-05:00

I am not much one for hanging around YouTube. First of all, it is a time suck. Second of all, there are things on YouTube that are just wrong. I do go on YouTube occasionally to watch music videos.

One of my work friends had mentioned Telephone by Lady Gaga. I had no idea what she was talking about as my only reference for Lady Gaga is Eric Cartman on Southpark singing Poker Face. So to watch the music video I went to YouTube. Lady Gaga is theatre of the absurd who dethrones Madonna as the diva of the innuendo and sexually charged video, so don't go to YouTube watch the video and get all, "OMG I can't believe Kimberly told me to watch this. My eyes! My mind's eye! I'm going to puke." and ruin your computer board from all the barf.

But I digress....

When I was looking up the video, I noticed that some of our troops stationed overseas had made their own music videos for their favorite Lady Gaga songs. I watched a few of these videos and thought about how the troops needed to blow off a little steam.

Then I thought about my days at the university. We had fun dancing to Madonna, playing in garage bands, and doing roughly the same thing, but all pre YouTube (Thank you Jeazuz! Nobody needs to see that today). We would dress up and do spoofs, copy the latest fashions of our rock idols, actors, etc. It was us, in a war zone.

Now, I don't know about many of you, but when I was looking at universities this was not my criteria: Come roast in our plywood dorms with limited air conditioning and uncomfortable beds while suffering in the dusty heat from boredom alternating with heart thumping danger. Come enjoy our fitness program with motivation provided by live gun fire and explosions while wearing 100 pounds of protective equipment to tone those thighs and tighten those abs. Learn how to write fiction telling your parents how you are doing okay and how things are fine, so your parents don't worry.

I thought about how many of the guys, smiling and dancing in the videos would come home to Dover, Delaware with no fanfare and no public witness in a black body bag. Most of us would not even think about it because although we have been fighting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq longer than any other war, we have indulged ourselves in that we refuse to watch news of the war on t.v. because it is too depressing.

I am just as guilty. I used to go on nytimes.com every morning to see the list of the dead and offer a silent moment for their families. I don't even remember when I stopped. I didn't even realize until I sat down to write this post that most of the websites I relied on to provide this information no longer have it posted on the home page.

We are creating a new group of alumni of the university of war. They will receive no diploma and we won't attend their graduation.

Stupid Failure of a $10 Piece of Rubber

2010-07-17T15:39:00.003-05:00

Fewer things destroy my will to live faster than heat and humidity. I have never been a Southern flower who thrives in the heat wearing a white, cotton shift, fanning herself in a rocking chair on the veranda drinking iced tea. No. My people must have been Nordic people who melted if the thermometer sped past 90 and whose lungs could not distill oxygen out of air with more than 30% humidity. There is a reason Leif Ericson found Greenland and Labrador instead of South Beach.

I have been just this side of miserable even with the air conditioning because you can only cool the air so much. Hubby decided to put a remote display thermometer in the attic. It hit 140 the other day, so he turned on the attic fan to cool it down to under 100. When I walked under it on my way to the bathroom, it was like walking under a blast furnace.

In addition to the whole hotter than Hades in a hot day in hell issue, we have also had some of those problems related to home ownership. First the electric lawn mower died from natural causes. I always thought it would die from electricity loss due to cord amputation, but I was wrong. After using my mad knitting dexterity skills to reassemble the switch assembly, the mower still didn’t spring to life. We have yet to bury the thing, but it is dead. I stopped at Lowes on my way to work one morning and wrestled a new lawn mower into the trunk of the car. Hubby really likes this lawn mower. He claims it is better and quieter – although how would he know he looks like a giant bug with his noise cancelling head phones on.

Then the hot tub has been acting up a little bit – although it has been so hot the thought of sitting outside in the heat in a tub of hot water is less than thrilling. We need to get new filters for that.

Then there was the “mild” flooding of the basement and Man Cave that happened when I was getting ready for this week’s knit night.

On the one hand I feel grateful that we did not have the problems a lot of other people did when the monsoon hit on Tuesday. On the other hand, it was tres annoying that the water got in the basement because the flashing (a $10 piece of equipment) under the basement door did not do its job (a $100 worth of annoyance).

We have dried it out to the best of our ability. Memo to self – do not expect a wet dry vac to actually suck up enough water out of a carpet to make it dry. Wet dry vac only means you can use it vacuum up Cheerios spilled out of the box or Cheerios and milk from a bowl. Now we have the whole got to rent the carpet cleaner thing to treat the carpets with some vinegar and cleaning solution or do we just rip up the carpet drama to endure this weekend. Yeah!

Through all of this, there is the added bonus of the heat and humidity that makes everything so much more pleasant because one’s clothes are sweat drenched and one’s temper is on a vacation. Yeah right.

To keep my sanity, I have been reading books and working on a cotton baby blanket for one of the women at work. So far it seems to be working, but that could change at any moment.

Greetings from Tropical In Cincinnati

2010-06-21T11:50:00.003-05:00

It is monsoon season in Cincinnati. I have a hard time believing it myself until I venture outside and my brain boils inside my skull while my lungs protest that they have not yet devolved into gills. I quit knitting on a baby blanket for a friend of mine and a shawl because even with the a/c they were too hot. There are plenty of smaller projects to occupy my hands. Besides it is never too early to start the Christmas socks.

I have also been reading quite a bit lately. Usually, I keep two to three books going at once in a couple of different genres to keep the brain working. I finished Sweater Quest by Adrienne Martini a couple of days ago.

Sweater Quest is the account of one knitter's Everest project. I won't generalize and say that all knitters have that one impossible project that calls to them like no other. Signora Maritini's Everest project was an Alice Starmore design called Mary Tudor.

For those who don't know about Alice Starmore designs, here is a brief over view. Alice Starmore is a knitter and designer from the Hebrides. She is best known for her Fair Isle knitting designs. Madame Starmore created Fair Isle designs of heartbreaking beauty because Madame Starmore has a genius for color. With only two colors in any given row, Alice Starmore creates sweaters with such intricate motifs and combinations that at first it seems impossible. This alone would be a credit to knitting genius, but Madame Starmore did not stop there. She went on to design Ganseys and Aran sweaters that were just as intricate as her colorwork. I have several of her books in my collection and read them often.

To knit an Alice Starmore design is to put your expertise to the test in such a way that other knitter's know you have been to the dojo of knitting and caught the fly with the chopsticks.

For a year, Adrienne Martini lives with her project. I can sympathize with her obsession with a knitting Everest. For me it is a Shetland shawl. I have the kit. I look at it at least once a month. I think about winding the yarn at least once a month. I don't doubt my knitting mojo or my knitting chops. Yet, the yarn and pattern languish in their plastic bag taunting me.

Several years ago, I went to see the IMAX movie Everest. Let's just say that any match flame of an idea I had that I might one day climb the real Everest were blown out in the first five minutes. When I saw the crazy people with oxygen tanks using telescoping painting ladders to cross crevasses so deep you weren't quite sure you wouldn't fall to the center of the earth, I got a little sick. Let's face it, insanity, oxygen deprivation and severe illegal drug intoxication are the only combination that would even allow me to entertain the possibility of putting a foot on the ladder.

My Shetland shawl is nothing so terrorizing or deleterious to my life expectancy. I knit lace all the time. I knit shawls all the time. A Shetland shawl is nothing but the combination of the two. So, why don't I do it.

I think part of the answer lies in the fact that once you have climbed Mt. Everest, how do you beat that? Seriously? Is there another, higher peak? Is there another way you can show your badassness to the climbing community? No. You just climb the same mountain in stupider ways, like with no oxygen, or faster, or naked. Are you going to be just as interested in climbing Mt Hood or Mt Kilamanjaro? Will you just hang up your climbing gear and think bleh when someone talks about an expedition to climb in the Alps?

Knitting can be a bit like that. Knitting can also be like the trail to California during the Western Expansion of the United States. It is said, and I believe it, that the ruts where the wagons traveled along the trail got so deep from use, that later expeditions traveled in ruts as deep as the hub of the wagon wheels. While ruts help you know where the trail is and guide you on the way. When they are deep, you cannot turn, and you cannot get off a trail that is going over a cliff.

For a while now I have been in a knitting holding pattern. It has been something soothing that I have turned to during a big move, months of grief and a sense missing people I love who live so far away. In the space of not having to think about how I am working the needles, my mind has had the chance to process and to reach a point of acceptance and health.

Although it is hot. Although it is steamy. Although all Shetland shawls are knit with wool, perhaps now is the time. If is too terrible, I can always set it on fire, bury the ashes and claim that the yarn was homesick for the Shetland Islands so it caught a flight and moved in with a family of sheep who claim to know its parents.

Tru Blood is Back Baby!!!

2010-06-14T14:15:00.003-05:00

Reader Warning Advisory: Some of the following content may be a bit more descriptive than what some gentle readers are accustomed to reading from me and might not be appropriate for younger readers. If you continue reading and feel offended or shocked that something like that could come out of my brain down to the blog, I accept no responsibility. You have been duly advised.

I have read vamp lit since I was 10 or 11. While my classmates were deciding what to wear to 6th grade graduation, I was memorizing the methods to kill the undead in case of an attack. I specialized in Vamps, Weres, and exorcisms. If zombies attacked, well I was going to be SOL and have my brains eaten. You have to go with what you know, and with my parents' line of work, I felt confidenct I could do battle with SOB's from hell and demon spawn. You have to go with your strenghts and mine lay in holy water, stakes, crosses and holy writ. Chain saws and sawed off shotguns just weren't my style.

I started with the Queen of All Vamp Lit - Anne Rice's Interview With a Vampire. I must have read it 10 times before I got out of high school. I read other vamp lit, and believe me when I tell you it has progressed 1000 times since the '80's. The Reagan Era wasn't kind to the undead. People were too caught up in greed, being yuppies, and getting a head - not protecting themselves from vamps, wolves in people clothing and slime spewing demons. I was one of the few that when the day came and the nighstalkers came to take over humankind, I would be ready to protect me and mine.

Of course my parents looked at this with equal parts horror and humor. Guess you really don't want to belittle a child who is practicing to stake things. Might not work out too well. But I digress....

A few years ago I discovered the Sookie Stackhouse series. Most people who know me know that I generally go for something a bit more cerebral. I am more a Pulitizer or Booker Prize winner kind of gal. Still, filled with a bit of ennui and the need for something not quite as turgid as all I that, I picked up the first in the Sookie Stackhouse series. I read through them all without coming up for air.

Then came the news that I dreaded. HBO was going to make a series from the books.

I am not a purist. Books can be made into film. What is bothersome is that a great story told on the page often times gets hacked to bits on the screen. What is even more bothersome is that a great story told on the page in a series that is still active can be ruined by its audio-visual adaptation.

This happened with Interview with a Vampire. Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise as vampires was so ludicrious. I mean, come on. The person in charge of casting could have made a blockbuster had they only picked up the phone and called me. After I stopped laughing at their choices, I could have recommended some actors with a tad more schadenfeude. Being a vamp isn't just about sucking people's blood and looking good while doing it. Unfortunately, I have been unable to read Interview with a Vampire since. Each time I have tried, I have hippie blond dye job Pitt (With the same hippie blonde dye job, Pitt was most excellent in Legends of the Fall. Read the novella, then watch the movie to get a stunning example of what can happen to the written word reinterpreted on screen. The casting was superb and the narrative straight from the novella.) and Scientology crazy faced Cruise in my mind. (No, I will not apologize about linking scientology and crazy. I have my reasons.) Good book ruined by Hollywood.

So, two seasons ago when Tru Blood, the HBO adaptation of the Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series aired, I was prepared to be underwhelmed to disappointment. Then I saw the premiere episode. OMG!! It was bloody fraking awesome. I sat staring at the end credits upset that I had to wait an entire workweek and a Saturday before the next episode. That pain was nothing compared to waiting for a new season to start.

Last night was the premiere episode of season three. I rarely say this about a television series, because if I like a series two things happens - it will get cancelled after three shows or they will "tweak it" (a Hollywood euphemism for FUBAR) until it sucks and then cancel it, but season three looks like it is going to be more incredibly awesome than seasons one or two. All I have to say is that Allen Ball knows how to write good television.

Some of the lines were so brilliant I am going to start using them in everyday conversation. Lines like, "less conscience more cojones", "I don't have time for your lesbian weirdness" (that one is going to be a little more difficult to include in my daily conversation), there are a couple of others, but some readers might not appreciate them as much as I do, because my inner child is a 14 year old boy.

So for the next few Sunday evenings from 9 - 10 pm don't call me. You can text me, but only if you are also watching Tru Blood and want to share the experience. Oh, and trust me, the only knitting I will be doing is one very plain, gianormous sock because I am so team Eric. Sometimes it the vampire hunter who gets staked.

It Only Took A Month...

2010-06-10T21:34:00.003-05:00

I survived my mom’s hysterectomy and have managed a full recovery.

For those of you who believe that the sentence should have read, “my mom survived her hysterectomy”, you have obviously never been around someone who has had a hysterectomy.

People who actually have a hysterectomy receive awesome, mind altering substances in the hospital. Then they are released with enough pain medication to down a great, blue whale on crack. Those who are taking care of them are given nothing, not even an aspirin to alleviate the back pain from sitting in the hospital issue Torquemada chairs in the surgery waiting area.

I have come to the conclusion that it was a good thing that my mom decided not to smoke pot in her younger years, as she would be the one in the circle who giggled incessantly and made pronouncements like, “You know what? The sky is blue! Blue!” It would have been a waste of good pot…. and brain cells. Seeing my mom high was the highlight of my day. I needed the comic relief.

I sat in the “recliner” chair knitting on a sock while my mom faded in and out of lala land. I watched Law and Order: Criminal Intent or SVU or the original most of the day.

Memo to hospital administrators – You should be forced to sit in the chairs you buy for the patients and families that visit your hospital for at least three hours before buying them.

If you have 15 permutations of ESPN, you should have at least 5 channels for people who would rather go without pain medication than be subjected to sports television.

If you have a cafeteria, it should not close at 1:30p.m.

Most of all, you should drop the farce that a hospital is a pleasant place to be because you have muted colors and some hotel art on the walls. What makes or breaks a hospital experience is where you sit your butt. Personally, I could care less if the walls are painted crap brown with art courtesy of Mary Sister Elephant’s kindergarten class if the chair I am sitting in doesn’t make me wish I were numb from the head down.

P.S. It sends a mixed message to read the hospital’s mission statement promising quality care for one's loved one while sitting in a chair that makes one plot stealing the hammer from the maintenance dude's belt so that one can hit one's self in the head to make one's back stop hurting.

But I digress....

I had plans of all the wonderful things I would manage while taking care of my mom. I had intended to at least get a pair of socks or two finished before the first annual KY Sheep and Fiber Festival. (I want to apologize publicly to the friends I met in Lexington after a week at Chez Prep and Surgery Recovery. I was crazy, tired and suffering from brain dead personality disorder. Yellow Springs, OH should be better.) I had miscalculated how much work goes into caring for someone who has had surgery when you don't want to feed them fast food and protein bars.

I did make a few bizarre discoveries. Discovery number one: If you put a teaspoon of Benefiber in a 24 ounce smoothie, it will congeal to the consistency of caulking in less than five minutes. The serving size is two teaspoons in 8 ounces of water. Discovery number two: My mom's nurse friends enjoy getting entirely too much information. It would have been easier if I had put up the Mom's Vajayjay facebook page like I threatened to do. Discovery number three: Mom's Vajayjay should be a theoretical body part. No, seriously. Discovery number four: Sexism is alive an well and I managed to make it back to my parents' house with both size 10 Birkenstocks intact. I am withholding details to keep me from shooting fire out of my eyes.

Still, I read a few books; got a frightening look into the future, no Ouiji Board, crytal ball or scrying bowl required; scored some great fiber, a sweet drop spindle and great time with friends, and made it home in one piece to sleep in my own bed. At least it wasn't a family reunion or a Griswold Vacation. Now that would have taken a least six weeks and a six pack of micro brew to process.

If You Buy A Man A House

2010-06-08T10:55:00.003-05:00

I am sitting at my desk, sitting in my hot pink, office chair, enjoying the latest Mary Chapin Carpenter, and the sounds of the neighborhood. This is no small luxury.

On our last trip to the Homeowners Place of Penance, I saw a small, electric weed whacker. I bought it for Hubby as that was the last bit of lawn care equipment we lacked. I sat down to write the next day only to be greeted by the buzz of a man at work in the back yard. It was maddening. Just when I thought it was over, it started up again.

I kind of felt sorry for the weeds as I watched from the second story window as Hubby the Weed Scourge wielded the Whacker of Weedy Woe. I was also glad I had not chosen to plant any flowers in the back, as HWS wields the WWW in a whacking frenzy possibly whacking friend and foe.

The house has become this living thing with wants and needs of its own. Part of these wants and needs are fueled by Hubby. Before, it was just me with my fiber needs. Now Hubby hasn't seen a home improvement project he doesn't want to consider.

It all started with the electric mower that he bought for a song on Craig's List. He has a routine about mowing the yard, which I do appreciate since I thought he would never do it of his own volition.

The mower was followed by the acquisition - again from Craig's List - of these giant plastic barrels he was planning on turning into rain barrels. They are still in the back yard, just plain old barrels. Any rain that gets inside is incidental to the fact they are in the back yard and barrels.

He did take a hands on class on rain barrels, so we do have one functional rain barrel. This rain barrel feeds the drip waterer for the tomato plants. There is the promise of tomatoes as the plants are growing and have blooms. I am looking forward to that.

Then there was the Return from Texas Trip Surprise Holes in the Wall. Surprise! It was supposed to be speakers but I couldn't get the cable run like I thought I could.

Next was the huge investment sitting the basement waiting to deprive me of a hot shower. I have finally talked Hubby into reality world by getting him to accept the difference between technical and practical knowledge. You have technical knowledge when you read books and watch videos about installing a tankless hot water heater. You only get the practical knowledge after you have helped a professional or some other person who has hands on experience install a tankless hot water heater. All my prayers have been answered as the universe has sent us a plumber.

I will admit to cringing more than a little when I hear the words, "I've been thinking; You know what would be cool; I saw this thing on DIY tv the other day". I have to practice centering and calming breathing before saying "No. And are you nuts?"

It isn't as if I am not complicit in all of this. I did put some herbs in the front after ripping out the day lilies. I am allergic. Plus, I have this insane belief that big, grassy plants are the domestic breeding ground for black mamba and reticulated pythons escaped from the local pet store. I also got a hibiscus and some rose bushes. The knowledge that this year is the floral building year and that I will have to wait until next year to benefit from all this year's labor is tough at times, but at least there will be fresh basil and tomatoes.

Still, when I am sitting at my desk next to a row of windows that let in the light and a brillant view of blue sky and our neighbors' back yards I don't regret buying the house or the Whacker of Weedy Woe. When I am sitting in the hot tub in the evening looking up at the stars and hearing the sounds of the neighborhood at rest, I don't regret buying the house. When I am sitting in my front room knitting in good, natural light, I don't regret buying the house. When I hear the sound of the electric mower or the whacker, I am not quite sure.

How You Know That the Company Screwed the Pooch

2010-05-24T19:55:00.003-05:00

Generally, I am not an early adopter of technology. I have the mistaken impression that when I get a piece of technology that when I turn it on, it should work as expected. My expectations are not that it will make me rich, fly, a superhero, or the Queen of Sheba. No. My expectations are that that said piece of technology will function as advertised. If it is an MP3 player, I should be able to turn it on and hear my music. If it is a laptop, I should be able to turn it on, check my e-mail, write, or play Majong or Spider Solitaire. If it is an e-reader you should be able to read your books on it.

Additionally, when you are given that little message to update your device's software and you do so, your device should still work.

My expectations are so simple as to be complicated. When I updated the software on my e-reader, it was a complete and utter disaster. I would not have been so upset had it not been for the fact that I was prompted to update my device a mere two days prior to the release of the final book in the Steig Larsson trilogy. The final book that has been available in Europe for months (bastards). The final book that I have thought about once a day until I forced myself out of denial and realized that May 25th would not come any sooner just so I could get the book (damn it). Now, due to my e-reader failure, I would be forced to buy it in a bookstore. Not that I really care about that part, mind you, it is just so inconvenient when you are dying for a book. I mean, you have to get in a car and everything. What a pain in the butt.

Also, if you know me well, you also know that a bookstore for me is like going into some kind of Nirvana. I barely make it out of there with only two books in my hands, much less just the one I went in to buy.

But I digress....

So, I send an e-mail to manufacturer of said e-reader, explaining to them that now their software won't even say as much as "Hello, now go screw yourself" to my computer. I also explain, lest they think I am totally incompetent that I have done everything according to Nerd Hubby's protocol and things aren't working any better. I get standard "We'll get back to you within 24 hours" response. Lo and behold later in the day I get a response. I am giddy. I get on my machine and follow the instructions. Nothing. Now at this point I am getting a bit peeved. I can't possibly be the only person this is happening to, or can I?

I do what no human wants to do. I do what no human will do if they have any other option. I do what no sane human who wants to maintain their sanity will do. I called the 1-866 number. Yes. I. Did.

After my call bounced around the globe and landed in Bulgaria (Just for sake of argument. The gentleman who finally answered my call didn't sound Sub-Continent Indian, and my ability to differentiate between the Balkan accents is rather limited.)

Then I heard the phrase that is a signal to anyone calling a help line that the company screwed up and have annoyed many millions of their customers ... "We are receiving a higher than expected call volume. Please stay on the line and your call will be answered in the order it was received."

That one phrase told me I was not alone in the universe. That one phrase told me that I was not too incompetent to press the download and install upgrade buttons on my computer. That one phrase told me that some nameless, faceless person had probably had their worst week ever at work because they screwed up a simple upgrade. I did not feel sorry for them. No, I did not.

So, little dude on the phone fixed my problem. Today I was able to get my book.

I didn't start reading it, yet, because I had lunch with my mother-in-law. If I started it, I would have been willing to feign the worst case of diarrhea in the Western hemisphere to stay home and read it. I would have said, "I don't mind going, but with this explosive diarrhea I might not make it without having an accident in the car." She would have understood and I would have accumulated some bad daughter-in-law karma. I have accumulated enough bad karma that I am afraid to have children as they will all have colic, reflux, and bad gas.

Planning for Summer Delights

2010-05-04T14:58:00.001-05:00

I am home after running several errands today. Got all the swag for Mother’s Day, which is rather complicated.

I also got a couple of activities for my mom and me to do while she is recovering from her surgery. Travel Scrabble, so we can play on my mom’s bed if she isn’t up to sitting in a chair and a puzzle of some artwork by a tattoo artist. Not so sure that my mom will appreciate that, but it will look good finished and hung in my room.

Outside it is glorious. I bought some herbs. I need to get a few more as I am light on mints. We have a porch, so I have visions of the fragrant mints greeting me as I walk into my house in the afternoons, flavoring some iced tea on a hot afternoon. I also have lavender, rosemary, and basil. I am putting them in the front so the smell perfumes the evenings. I am hoping that when the bedroom windows are open – the bedroom is above the porch- our bedroom will be scented with the herbs. I have some thyme that is awesome on chicken or fish. I also have some basil.

We love basil with lemon and pasta; basil, tomatoes, garlic, and good olive oil spread over baguette, topped with fresh mozzarella and popped in the oven until the cheese is bubbly and gooey; fresh basil, Italian sausage and tomatoes on pizza.

The best thing is that we are going to plant some tomatoes. I will only eat peaches that smell like peaches. They are hard to find, but it is possible. I will only eat cantaloupe that smells like cantaloupe. A bit easier to find than the peaches. Fresh sweet corn beats the pants off anything frozen. All of these can be found in the grocery.

But tomatoes… Poor, hard, rubbery, mealy tomatoes are about all that make it to the stores. A fresh, vine ripened tomato… now that is nature’s poetry. A few years ago, Hubby and I managed to grow a few tomatoes on the deck of our apartment. They were wonderful. They smelled incredible and tasted like, well, tomatoes.

One of the reasons we wanted a bit of yard was to plant a few vines of that summer delight. Hubby is already dreaming of bacon and tomato sandwiches.

For now it is all about planning and waiting; nurturing and protecting; watering and fertilizing. And a warning to all you bastard aphids, bugs, and assorted plant rapers – I may not have a gun, but I will kill you if you touch my plants. Don't try me.

The View Outside My Window

2010-05-03T07:33:00.002-05:00

I started the day this morning on my throne looking out the window. There was a two headed dog on the corner and a loud bird screaming on the power wire above its head. For a moment I thought I was stoned, but just realized it was a normal Monday morning in the urban'burbs.

A lot has gone on since I last wrote. It has taken awhile to process everything, so some of my next few posts may have that Alice through the looking glass and down the rabbit hole feeling.

Last week, we had a big community meeting. It is definitely an election year. The city wants to know what our neighborhood would like to see in the coming years to improve livability. Hubby and I sat at a table around a giant map of our neighborhood with some geezers from the local geezer apartment high rise and the 12 year old intern from the planning commission.

Apparently the geezers are having issues crossing the street to the McDonald's to get their coffee and hold their local geezer conclave. So, all they want is a longer light, although that light is one of the longer ones in human history. Don’t forget the park by the McDonald’s so they can hold their geezer meetings in a park on some benches. (For some undisclosed reason, consuming your McDonald’s coffee inside the McDonald’s or on the outside tables at the McDonald’s is not up to geezer standards.) Oh, and they also want a family style, upscale sit down restaurant by the McDonald’s so they can walk to it. Well, the Kroger is too far to walk to and besides its too expensive, so they also want an Aldi’s or a Sav-A-Lot by the McDonald’s.

Nothing quite screams upscale restaurant like an Aldi’s or a Sav-A-Lot in the same shopping center as Big Lots, Value City Furniture, Dollar General Store, Everything for a Dollar, and Big Bob’s Carpet and Flooring.

I could not stop myself from pointing this out.

I also couldn’t stop myself from saying that the state is not going to lengthen the light during rush hour on a four lane road that is a major artery and already congested to encourage pedestrian crossings during rush hour and perhaps it would be easier to cross the street before or after rush hour. I got the geezer sour face of death. Perhaps Logan’s Run should become our model. It would solve worrying about the availability of Social Security.

After the meeting, Hubby and I met some more of our neighbors. I now know who the controlling one is and told Hubby that we are sure to be talked about. Not that I care, but come on, our lives aren’t all that interesting.

Of course the devious nose tweaker in me immediately wanted to purchase a giant fountain for our front yard that has those little boys peeing the water into the main fountain basin. Then I wanted to add a naked couple locked in passionate embrace, because if you are going to do something like that, the more outrageous the better. To top it all off, I would add those giant flood lights, whose light beam the astronauts on the space station use as reading lamps, that car dealerships use to share my yard art with my neighbors.

For now, I will just have to settle for them seeing Craig in all his nerdy glory mowing the yard in his acid burned pants and giant headphones. At least he mows the yard.

My Current Obsession

2010-04-02T14:47:00.004-05:00

This is my nephew. He is the smartest, cutest, funniest, and adorable child ever conceived or birthed in the history of humankind -- with the exception of me, of course, but I willingly cede my title.

This was my obsession last week.

I finished knitting this during the game of the West Virginia Mountaineers vs UK’s pod people Wildcats. (I can’t let myself believe that it was UK’s real team that played so horribly in the Elite Eight.) Well, to be honest, I finished knitting this sweater during Dark Relic on SciFi (I refuse to call it SyFy. That is just stupid.) as I am not a masochist and couldn’t watch the rest of a game that was the equivalent of taking a microplane grater to your eyeballs.

I found myself sitting abjectly dumbfounded at the stupidity of the announcer who basically said if UK wanted to win they have to make more points that West Virginia and keep West Virginia from scoring. Really? Is that how you win a basketball game, by scoring more points that your opponent?
Sign me up for that job. I’ll sit behind a desk with the blow dried sports has-beens pontificating about how a team needs to score more and prevent their opponent from scoring to win. I can sit behind a desk collecting big bucks saying things like, they won’t win if they can’t score a basket; they are 0 for 50 attempts at free throws, a dismal average; they have to hold onto the ball and make it down the court if they want to score. Now back to you, Tom.

But I digress….

This is my obsession this week.

My obsession with knitting sweaters for my nephew is born of my current goal of knitting down the stash. For an investment of six to eight hundred yards of yarn, I can knit my nephew a sweater. If the yarn is worsted weight, I can knit up a sweater in a couple of weeks. I could probably knit one up in a week, but I need my sock knitting time.

Since we have moved, I have invested some time in organizing my stash. I have found that for some reason, on a few occasions I miscalculated the yardage needed to knit an adult garment. I have enough on hand to knit some cool things for wee people in general and my nephew in particular.

It has been awhile since I knit something that wasn’t foot or shawl related. It’s not that I mind knitting things with arms or pit shaping. What I do mind is that little detail called putting the damn thing together.

The difference in knitting between handknit and homemade is a poorly executed seam. When I seam, my OCD finds entire new methods to send me straight to Looneyville.

What I like about the sweaters that I have been knitting for my nephew is that they have all been little top down numbers that require no seaming. Just my speed. So, I’ll keep knitting them until the yarn runs out.

Spring is Here

2010-03-02T19:13:00.014-05:00

How do I know Spring is here? There are signs. Sign number one - leeks that smell like leeks, unlike leeks that smell like dirt and something approximating a leek, are showing up in the grocery. What should a leek smell like, you ask? A leek should smell like sweet onion with a hint of grass after rain. Sign number two - the Dairy Queen two blocks from my house opened for the season. Sign number three - the Winter Olympics are over.

Now as many knitters and spinners, I had my personal challenges for the Winter Olympics. For those of you unfamiliar with the craft aspect of the Olympics here are the basics. You chose a project that you will start during the opening ceremonies and finish by the closing ceremonies of the the Olympics. Alternatively, you can choose to craft for x number of minutes a day, learn a new technique, or create a number of different challenges.

My challenge for the Winter Olympics was to finish several projects. On my list was Multnomah I and II, Aibhlinn sans bobbles, a Rivolo scarf, a Brooklyn Tweed Noro Scarf knit in Rowan Tapestry and a pair of plain socks knit in Patons self patterning yarn.

Things began with promise and vigor. Multnomah II progressed nicely. I finished Aibhlinn by the end of the Winter Olympic Opening Ceremonies.

I thought I would make it, especially when I finished Multnomah II the next day.

Then there was Multnomah I. Multnomah I had already been put in time out. The yarn had just enough mohair to make it a pain in the patootie to knit. I hate mohair. I really, reeaally do. Once you knit the yarn, the little mohair fibers just grab onto each other like two teenagers in the back seat of a car. It is supremely difficult to pry them apart. I had already pried the fibers apart once before. It was less than pleasant. I subsequently made the same mistake, thus requiring me to repeat the painful process of unknitting mohair. Good times! Stupid Knitting Olympics.

To keep my sanity, I left Multnomah I in time out, again, and worked on the socks. I got them finished watching some of the curling competitions. In between I worked on the Brooklyn Tweed scarf. I just couldn't face the pain of Multnomah 1.

Then I embraced the pain and challenge, and unknit about 20 rows of mohair and lace. Yippee! I decided at that point to burn all the mohair in my stash, not there is much mohair in there. I could give it to another knitter, but I don't think I can handle that kind of bad karma.

I did manage to finish Multnomah I the week after the Winter Olympics. Although I didn't finished everything I had put on my list, I did get a lot done. I had some set backs. I did have to unknit a good deal on both of the Multnomah shawls. All of it due to knitter error. My projects turned out great. I still need to block them.

I am also glad that the Winter Olympics only come once every four years. I have decided that the Olympics are a lot like presidential campaigns. It takes you four years to get over it, but the training/campaigning always begins the week after the last one is over.

I had planned to at least finish the Brooklyn Tweed scarf, but another project became my obsession. Details to follow.

P.S. The pictures don't do my projects justice.

P.P.S. Perhaps a photography class would do me good.

Death's Third Knock

2010-02-23T08:25:00.003-05:00

Hubby's uncle died the first week of February. He lived in Conneticut.

I considered driving up with him and the in-laws, but between having some reports due for work and having a cold that had me carrying around tissues and drowning in my own secretions, I opted out. The thought of sitting in the back of a Buick, surrounded by boxes of tissues, with my nose running as if it was being paid to do so, my eyes all filmy and bloodshot, and not being able to snuggle down in a bed until we got to the hotel was not appealing and possibly life threatening to others.

Then there was the whole post traumatic stress from the Vermont trip 10 years ago. Let's just say that there are idiosyncracies that are better if you grow-up with them than marrying into them. I hate Cleveland, but it isn't Cleveland's fault, it's just where we ended up after spending 14 hours in the car. But I digress....

As events played out, I was glad I stayed home. First, for those of you living in a cave or in a foreign country who doesn't give a crap about weather in the U.S., we have gotten more than our normal share of snow and cold. Hubby and his parents were trying to thread the needle weatherwise. They wanted to get to Conneticut after the last snow storm and make it back before the next snowstorm. They were only 50% successful.

Because I could not go, I decided to knit a shawlette - Multnomah (II, as it is the second one I have started) - as a remembrance. I had hopes of getting it finished in time to send it with Hubby, but Stupid Cold made reading the pattern difficult so I had to unknit a swath. Let's just say that the only thing worse than knitting when you aren't feeling the greatest is th einevitable result of knitting when you aren't feeling the greatest -- unknitting and re-knitting.

Added to the physically feeling of crappiness was the mental aspect. Was Hubby surviving? Would he be the same?

So, I get a call Thursday evening from a tired, weak Hubby, decrying the day as the worst in human history. I had suspicioned that the roads through Pennsylvania would be an icemare. I had not thought that leaving Ohio would take on the tenor of Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. At least it wasn't the Donner Party. To top it all off, diinner at Ruby Tuesday was the last blow to his ego. The waitress preferred to flirt and chat up the hot, young, beer drinking dudes than wait on a middle aged married dude and his parents.

My enjoyment of the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics was interrupted by Hubby needing reassurance that I would love him in spite of insanity and prison. We talked about how the family was doing and how they would face the following day of the burial and memorial service.

Jim started out as a community organizer in Harlem during the 60's. He suffered two great personal tragedies without a lot of space between. I could see the effects in a sadness behind his eyes. He found another life in the banking community and with his second wife and children. He was so proud of his sons, both clever young men. He loved his wife, Claudia. They were both smart, funny, and modern. Jim's dry sense of humor complemented Claudia's outgoing laugh and manner. We saw them mainly at the biennial family reunions. The last one in July 2009, Jim looked a bit less than his normal self. He still had his sense of humor. He clearly enjoyed being with his brothers and telling family stories. He enjoyed seeing his nephews and his grand-nephew and niece. None of us knew that it would be the last time we would be together.

I am comforted by the fact that we didn't know. I am glad that we were able to be together without the pall of Jim's sickness, without the need to make everything memorable because of circumstance, without the need to make everything of super importance. I am comforted because we got to be family together one last time.

Happy Birthday, Jonathan!

2010-02-20T20:21:00.003-05:00

Today is my brother's birthday. He came to visit while my sister and nephew were here from Buenos Aires. Although he was a bit of a pest when we were kids, I have to admit - and not reluctantly, I might add - that he has turned out to be a great guy.

Only a good dude would play "Elebator" (my nephew's way of saying "elevator") for hours on end and before having his first cup of coffee in the morning. My nephew invented the game at our house. We have a broom closet with a folding door. So, one evening my nephew opened the door and said it was his "elebator". He would squeeze in and close the door. Then he would say "Unnncclllee Jooooohhhhnnathan! Where am I?" followed by hysterical giggles. My brother would go around saying, "Where's Marcos? I can't find him!" and Marcos would laugh and laugh.

Only a guy in touch with his inner child and willing to be completely crazy just to entertain his nephew would play shark attack. We visited the aquarium with Marcos and Laura. They have a shark cage simulator. You stand in this darkened room that is made up to look like a shark cage. On the screen in front of you they have a movie of great white sharks coming toward the cage, knocking it about and generally trying to eat you. There is a plate in the floor that moves as the sharks hit the cage.

The sign outside the exhibit proclaims in large letters - Exhibit may be too intense for some children. Please use discretion. We ignored that sign and went in.

For the next 5 minutes it was a B movie gone bad. Jonathan told Marcos if he was trapped in a cage with sharks attacking to punch the sharks in the face. Then, Jonathan began shadow boxing with the sharks, while his older sister, also in touch with her inner child, began giving color commentary. Marcos just laughed. The people outside the exhibit looked at us as if we had lost our minds when we exitted.

Every time my brother visits, I like to do something just the two of us. Usually, we plan to go to a movie. It's not a tradition, exactly, but we have similar senses of humor and like a good horror or shootem' film. The two of us went to see The Book of Eli, not a super movie, but the company was great. We skipped lunch and had giant popcorns at the movie. We sat talking through the previews about the probable crappiness or awesomeness of the movie advertised. Then we watched the movie.

The thing that is so interesting about getting older, is that your siblings surprise you. Somehow they go from the little kid that wets the bed and then tortures the older sibs by trying to sleep with them in their warm, dry bed, to a dude who is compassionate and gives a crap about the world he lives in. Somehow they go from the kid who, with his best friend, crop dusted the school van so thoroughly the driver threatened to put them off while the rest of us gagged, to a dude who holds a responsible job and has a responsible degree.

My only regret is that now when we enjoy each other the most, we live so far apart. So, through the distance, I raise a glass of good bourbon in honor of your birthday, Jonathan. Wish we could share one together.

By The Side of the Road Part 2

2010-02-17T08:00:00.001-05:00

The one memory that I have as an adult that really changed my perception of my grandmother is related to her ladies' Bible study group. I would chauffer her to the hostess' house each week that summer. I was the youngest by a good half century. Anyway, each of the ladies would host the group. The other ladies would dress up to go. We would do the lesson for the week and then we ate homemade cookies, cakes, and tea sandwhiches. It was a big deal.

Up to this point, I knew my grandmother as a country woman with mad farmer's wife skills. She could can or pickle anything. She pasteurized her own milk and churned her own butter. She was thrifty. Nothing was too old to be used until it disentegrated. A simple plastic, disposible cup could be used for years.

So when it was my grandmother's turn to host, I saw something else entirely. For a week, I helped my grandmother clean. I moved furniture, stalked and destroyed dust bunnies - all two of them, washed windows, scrubbed floors and washed the good china, silver and crystal. Then there was the careful menu planning and trip to the grocery.

I didn't remember anyone but family coming to the house my entire life. I hadn't thought, until that point, of my grandmother as a house proud woman. I ironed and she started the napkins. She set the table just so after looking it up in the World Book to make sure she had it right. I served as maid and commie chef that day. I watched my grandmother and her quiet dignity that day. I understood her better after that, I think.

Later, when my grandmother couldn't cook holiday dinners any more because the arthritis in her knees and hips had gotten so bad. Of all the things she had difficulty remembering, my grandmother still remembered how to cook all the holiday favorites. I thought about how hard it must have been to be usurped in her own kitchen.

I saw her sitting at the kitchen table talking to us as we cooked and I thought again about that day she hosted her friends. I gave her a knife, the onions and the celery to chop for the dressing. I asked her to give me precise instructions so it would be the same. I served as her commie chef that day because something in me wanted to preserve the dignity of the woman from that day from just a few years before. With everything else that time and circumstance had taken from her, I needed her to keep her ability to participate in the holiday cooking intact.

By the Side of the Road Part 1

2010-02-16T08:00:00.004-05:00

Many people know the story in Genesis about the infamous love triangle of Jacob, Rachael, and Leah. Jacob loved Rachel and agreed to work seven years for her father as a bride price. Then on the wedding night, Leah, not Rachael, showed up in the marriage tent. So, Jacob raised a fuss, got Rachael and worked for his father-in-law for another seven years. All for love.

What many people don't know is how the love story of Jacob and Rachael ends. Rachael died in childbirth while the family was on the road. They barely stopped to bury her before moving on. The beloved of Jacob was buried by the way in a foreign grave. Leah, the lesser loved sister was burined in the family tomb with Jacob.

In a lot of ways the death of my paternal grandmother was like the death of Rachael. Hubby and I had just closed on the house. We were in the middle of painting and doing all the prep work to move in. Then my mom phoned to tell me my granmother had been diagnosed with an aortic aneuyrism and didn't have long to live.

I went down to see her at the nursing home the week she died. I wiped her face and held her hand. I sat there while others talked around us I sat there knowing I had said my good byes long ago but needed to be there for me.

When my grandfather died five years ago, my grandmother was moved to the nursing home. She had dementia and could not stay by herself. With each passing year, the dementia diminished my grandmother. As she lost more of her memory, it became more apparent that she would reach the point that she would not know who we were. That day was fast approaching.

Instead, my grandmother died of the aneuyrism in November. She died surrounded by people who loved her and people she knew instead of strangers.

I saw her on a Tuesday. She died that Friday. I played for her funeral on Monday. We moved that following weekend.

At Christmas I noted her absence and that of my maternal grandmother like an ache in my heart.

As If Freezing Weren't Enough

2010-02-15T20:06:00.003-05:00

Dear Mother Nature and Current Boyfriend El Nino,

It seems we have made you monumentally angry. Let me assure you it wasn't me. I have always respected your power and creatures - except for snakes, rodents, and bugs, which I don't think you much like either because you make them live in the dirt, eat trash, and have hardwired humans to want to smash their little skulls in on sight. So, I would ask that you would please make it stop snowing on my house and in my neighborhood. I have plenty of toilet paper and milk, thank you very much, but I would like to be able to get out to see my friends more easily. I am also going through a bit of Starbucks withdrawal as I have been unable to stop by for my once weekly quad venti soy latte before going to work. I really needed that latte on Wednesday morning.

It would also be helpful because I Mardi Gras is tomorrow and I really would like to make some Jambalya or Creole this week. I heard that Whole Foods had crawdads and I would love to be able to get them to get my Cajun on.

There there is the fact tv sucks butt because of the Olympics. I appreciate looking at all the beautiful Nordic peoples as much as the next person, but all that gear obscures the view. Except for the luge, but that is only because they are wearing skintight bodysuits and lying on their backs. All you see are feet and then knee bump, package bump, Adam's apple bump and helmet. If it weren't for the bumps it would be as if a PEZ dispenser was hurtling down a chute at 100 mph. For some reason, the other channels have colluded to prevent NBC from sliding into oblivion by putting on reruns. Thanks.

I would not be so sensitive to the whole tv issue, but I am trying to make a good showing with my Knitting Olympics challenge. So far I have gotten Multnomah II finished and I am making good progress on the Gradient Scarf - no thanks to a horrible Anne Hathaway movie.

All I am asking, Mother Nature and psychotic boyfriend El Nino, is that you move the severe weather to some other region. I am thinking that the polar ice caps could use the snow and sub freezing temperatures more that we could.

A Different Valentine's Day

2010-02-14T08:00:00.003-05:00

For the first time since Hubby and I have been married, we had planned to spend Valentine's Day apart. Hubby was planning to spend his day with Cupid and his parents on the return trip from Conneticut. The plan was for them to make it home on President's Day.

As is par for our course, when most of the universe would be headed in the opposite direction of record snowfall, we are forced to make it a destination. Hubby's uncle died and he traveled with his parents to Conneticut for the funeral. Nothing makes for a better trip than crappy weather and grief.

I stayed home. I had work responsibilities and had caught a cold from one of the "super" employees at work. Everyone works with a super employee. They are the person who has to work longer, work harder, work sicker than everyone else. They feel it is a badge of honor to come to work with a fever and snot dripping from every orifice telling everyone ho w horrid they feel, but they came to work anyway. They are the person when you tell them to stay as far away from you as possible so you are contaminated by whatever plague they are carring only laugh and sneeze in your face as they tell you they aren't contagious. They are the person that you wish you could call those dudes in the Haz Mat suits to come get them and take them to that super secret location where they lock you in this room so that you can't spread your disease. I used to be that person in my 20's.

Now I honor sickness as a gift from universe to stay home, watch bad t.v, lay in bed and drink tea with lemon, honey and a good shot of whiskey if the symptoms require it. I don't feel compelled to drag myself out of bed, get ready for work and locate the stash of tissue boxes so I am not reduced to using the sandpaper derrivates at work. If I am really feeling the need, I might take an extra day just to keep from spreading the contagion.

But I digress...

My original plan was to go to visit my parents in Louisville. My mom made my favorite casserole (Chicken Noodle) and pie (Coconut Cream). I had my bag packed. I ended up not going because Snowmaggedon / Snowpocalypse just can't seem to be over. I was kind of glad that I didn't go as the snow was delayed by several hours and there was no way I would be able to come home until at least Tuesday.

Snowmaggedon / Snowpocalypse also meant that Hubby and parents decided to drive straight through. So while I was having an awesome burger with some of my knitting girlfriends, Hubby was calling to say he would be home about the time I got home. So because of the snow, we have a perfect record, albeit one saved by two hours.

One of the things that I like about Valentine's Day is that it gives you and excuse to buy one of those sampler boxes of chocolate. Another thing I like about Valentine's Day is that there is at least one good action flick with chick appeal. This year it appears to be Wolfman. I was disappointed it wasn't Shutter Island, but I can wait a week. If I had to say what my absolute favorite thing about Valentine's Day is that it is one of two events during the year - my birthday is the other - when I don't feel guilty about asking Hubby to eat at some exotic restaurant with cuisine that isn't on the top of his list of things to eat. We order and sit making googlie eyes at eachother until the food comes. Sometimes it is as we expected. Other times we have difficulty reconciling what arrived on the plate with the description in the menu.

While we are out to dinner, I enjoy watching the young couples. The sit so close while they eat an are completely mesmerized by each other. I like remembering what it was like to be stupid in love. Without the stupid insanity induced by love hormones, no one would ever get married or have a long term relationship.

Valentine's Day is the one day when even old married couples can remember their stupid in love days and perhaps even relive them.

Waiting for Mr Snow Plow

2010-02-09T11:34:00.000-05:00

It is snowing again. Yesterday, I went out to get the necessities to see us through the 6 inches of snow we are supposed to get today and tomorrow. I bought cereal, pop tarts, frozen pizza, milk and toilet paper. I did get a couple of the Bertoli baked dinners in case we felt like being romantic and pretending we were in a ski cabin in Gstaad. We also have good hot chocolate and plenty of mini-marshmellows.

I noticed on Sunday that the snow had turned much of the area to stark black and white. I appreciate the beauty of that. The snow hangs on the trees and the wind blows it against the rough hewn rocks on either side of the interstate. Icicles hang like daggers from the rocks. The sun sparkles on the ice, glittering like gem stones.

It is intoxicating until you have to get out in it. Then you see the yellow and brown patches surrounded by four toed prints; the black oily chunks someone's car left behind; the grey slush in the grocery store parking lot that seeps into your shoes like a commando on a mission to rob you of warm, dry feet and your pleasant attitude. All of this driving you back into the house and into your red and white polka dot robe only to discover that when you turn on the t.v. you get the whole searching for satellite signal message because there is snow on the dish. You are reminded, yet again, of the conversation you had with Hubby. The one where you specifically asked about snow interfering with the satellite reception and him assuring you that it wouldn't happen, because the guys in the boygirldfriend club at work all have it and they don't have any problems and if we did lose reception due to snow he would get out and clean it off, only when it does happen it is snowing like blue blazes outside and he whines about it not being safe to be on a ladder during a raging snow storm. Any reminders about his promise to deliver uninterrupted service are met with the phrase, "stream something on Netflix".

I would be in a better mood were it not for two (maybe three, depending on how you count them) things. First, somebody gave me their crappy cold, complete with runny nose, bleary eyes, and sore throat. If I knew who they were, I would hunt them down and sneeze in their face a couple of times to give it back to them, complete with my genetic mutation of the virus. I don't feel horrible, I just feel bad enough to be whiney.

Second (and third, depending on how you count), I have two shawlettes that I am knitting, both the Multnomah pattern. Before I can go any further, I have to rip both of them back at least one lace repeat due to an inability to successfully count to six. Generally, I am a ripper, but there is something about taking lace work back that makes me grumpy. I have tried all my tricks to no avail. I love lacework, but sometimes she's a bitch of a taskmistress. I think I'll just have to settle in with a glass of wine and do both of them at the same time. It's not like I will be going anywhere until the snowplow comes.

Update from Stepford

2010-02-02T16:09:00.000-05:00

I am sitting on my couch, drinking a second cup of coffee, knitting my Rockin' Sock Club socks and doing laundry. If it is Tuesday, I have also cleaned the bathroom and changed the bed linens. This routine is not my favorite, but one of the ones I have adopted since moving into the house.

Mondays is grocery shopping and errand day. At least this week I didn't have the whole Stepford moment when I am pushing my cart down the aisle in synch with all the other women. That did happen a couple of weeks ago and I simultaneously wanted to cry and set my hair on fire running out of the store screaming that I was surrounded by fembots. Such is life when one has moved to demi-suburbia with nuns for neighbors.

While I cannot say that I love my routine, I will say that with all the festivities that have stretched from Christmas to last week that perhaps I need the old routine. That plus the fact since August, I have been operating at a deficit of calm, stability and balance in my life.

I hosted Christmas dinner. Why I thought that was a good idea, I will never know. Only a crazy person volunteers to host Christmas dinner barely a month into living in their new house. Then again, I think the whole move did something to my sanity that I am only now beginning to understand. Still, I pulled it off with a lot of help from my mom and mother-in-law. We had good food. My parents got to sleep on the Ikea futon whose purchase would have made an excellent reality t.v. show. Hubby got to be the man of the house and carve the goose. I got to be crazy woman whose only fear was that there wouldn't be enough food (genetic - maternal and paternal grandmothers' DNA).

The H1N1 State of Emergency ended, making it easier to plan my job life. The return to my at work routine has helped. I enjoyed working with all my co-workers from the different clinics and administrative departments during the special vaccination clinics. Still, I like my regular job and was really starting to miss it. Yes, I just can't stay away from tenements infested with cockroaches, bedbugs, and lead paint.

The house is beginning to feel more like my house, my home. I have given up caring what the neighbors think of my red and white polka-dot bathrobe. I am also able to find my way to the bathroom in the dark, which has come in handy. My mom helped me get the curtains up and the bedskirt on the bed in the master bedroom. Those were the finishing touches from a decor standpoint. I still have the whole organization part of the package to do, but at least it looks good.

After several months of not knitting a whole lot, January was my return to knitting. I sat down on New Year's Eve and started knitting again. I knit a pullover and hat for my nephew. Finished a couple of pairs of socks. Knit up a Baktus. Knit and then screwed up the lace edging on a Multnomah that is still in time out until I feel like ripping it back a few repeats. Just being able to sit down and knit has been restorative. Of course it helped that we had an artic cold snap making venturing out unappealing - even for work.

They say the groundhog saw his shadow today promising another 6 weeks of winter. I think he was just mad they woke him up with a cattle prod. Maybe he should repay the favor. I am knitting again, so at least I will stay warm.

New Year New Dishwasher

2010-01-05T14:23:00.003-05:00

The goal for today is to stay warm and dry. I took Hubby to work this morning in the freezing cold and snow. Then, I went to the grocery store, just in case, to pick up some necessities – i.e. toilet paper. Now I am sitting alone in my house waiting for the new dishwasher to arrive. Long story short – current dishwasher is loud, does not do its job well, and Hubby hates the way it loads.

It has occurred to me more than once in my first weeks as a homeowner that homeownership is expensive. Regardless of how great a house is and how much it is billed as move in ready, I have determined that either the person who believes it is a terrible optimist or ignorant of the vagaries of home ownership . I believe Hubby and me to be both.

What has surprised me the most in this entire experience is that Hubby has embraced the craziness of it all as a personal challenge. He has painted. He has installed smoke detectors. He has put additional insulation in the attic that made our bedroom go from a bit on the cold side to toasty warm – that is until the temperature drops way below freezing outside. He even unclogged the toilet when it required a trip to Lowe’s and the acquisition of a snake. (I will admit that he was not motivated until I informed him that I was not running from the second floor bedroom to the basement in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and that I was calling a plumber.)

For me, things feel like they are settling down a bit. I have been able to some knitting. I am doing some writing. The space is beginning to feel like home to me. All the upheaval and anxiety that have marked the past few months is slowly resolving. It helps that I have made a point on some cold, winter evenings to put on my jammies, sit wrapped up on the couch, drinking hot tea, and knitting or reading.

Then again, I will need all the calm and balance I can get. My brother, sister and nephew are coming for a visit next week. It will be the first time in many years that my siblings and I have been together. It will be my nephew’s first visit to the States.

We are a family familiar with airport joy and grief. I have lived two thirds of my life with family a hemisphere away. We moved to Argentina when I was thirteen. I thought that once my siblings and I graduated from high school that the three of us would stay together. Things didn’t work out that way. My brother lives in Phoenix. My sister lives in Buenos Aires. When my parents retired, they left my sister and nephew in Buenos Aires. Life is a funny ole dog.

The dishwasher guys have come and gone. They left a nice, quiet dishwasher behind and took the ancient one with them. Aside from the fact I took them of a tour of the basement on the quest of the breaker box that took them through the forrest of hanging bras and underwear, it was okay. The live too far away from me to care.

Now, I must remember to embark on a deforestation project before my brother and nephew arrive as I am sure that they will join Hubby in the Mancave. Washing alley is just through the magic door to the basement wild.

Confessions from the Darkside

2009-12-24T07:15:00.000-05:00

I think moving would not have been so terrible were it not for a couple of major things. Work has been a bit bonko due to all the special H1N1 clinics.

I will admit up front that I am a government employee. So, most of the time it is with no little irritation that I listen to people denigrate government and its supposed inefficiency. The panacea de jour is how much better government would function if it were run more like a business. I say there are governments that are run like a business. They are called dictatorships and authoritarian regimes. Democracy, by definition, is not an efficient means of running a government because, and this is key, everybody gets a vote and a say in how things are run.

But I digress…..

My current laugh a minute irony is listening to people talk about how inefficient government is, but that we are also engaging in this hugely efficient conspiracy related to H1N1. Depending on whom you speak to, the government is a) using the H1N1 vaccine as a method of implanting tracking devices into the citizenry; b) using the H1N1 vaccine to thin the heard; c) using the H1N1 vaccine to conduct genetic experiments or d) using the H1N1 vaccine to see how difficult it would be to euthanize babies and old people when we get socialized medicine.

The truth is more sinister. The government convinced Warren Buffet to donate vast sums of money to pay Rush Limbaugh to tell his listeners not to get the H1N1 vaccine. The left wing conspiracy is to keep the vaccine solely for us and our socialist overlords in Canada. To make it easier for them to take over the United States, we need to discourage right wing, God fearing conservatives from getting vaccinated and thereby vulnerable to H1N1. In their weakened state, they will be unable to defend against gun regulation, socialized medicine, changing Kraft Macaroni and Cheese to Kraft Dinner, and having to end every sentence with “eh”.

Most of all we have been able to keep it all a deep secret from our puppets in the liberal media, and Fox News.

Now that I have confessed and set some minds at ease, let me be serious.

People die in this country every day from preventable diseases. It is a shame that when it comes to public health, we, who have benefitted most from vaccination technology in the reduction to near elimination of childhood diseases, are so willing to turn back the clock to the days of our parents and grandparents.

The Fat Man Cometh

2009-12-23T19:09:00.001-05:00

For the first year in several, there is no Christmas knitting. I decided with everything going on that Christmas knitting would be the straw. Of course I didn’t anticipate the whole Christmas shopping thing.

I have determined that everyone in the family needs to love yarn as much as I do, because it would make the Christmas shopping more enjoyable and easier. I say this having not set foot in a mall because I am afraid of contracting rabies or zombiosis. Of course, I could always arm myself for either possibility, but my patience is thread thin and ready to snap. Couldn’t have a rank civilian getting caught between a mall zombie and the barrel of my gun, much less someone exhibiting symptoms of rabies, who was only drinking an extremely foamy latte and I just blasted them out of fear and disgust. But I digress.

I generally enjoy the holiday season from Thanksgiving to my birthday at the end of January. I love the festive lights, the seasonal candles, the beauty, the specialness of it all. Yet, what I discover around this time each year is that I am a misanthrope.

It’s true. I hate people. I hate people in their cars booger mining like there is no tomorrow, talking on their cell phone and weaving in and out of traffic because there will be no air left in the mall for them to breathe once they get there. I hate people who stop in the middle of the aisle at the grocery store, their cart at an angle so no one may pass without asking politely to be excused only to get the rolled eyes and snort, like they are the border guards protecting the green beans.

I especially hate people talking loudly on their cell phones going on and on while the rest of us wait for them to give their order to the barista. Of course, once they shut up they take another 20 years to order their coffee drink as the wrong choice would doom a third world country to death and destruction. I have news for you. That third world country is probably already doomed to death and destruction because so many of us buy lattes period instead of supporting efforts to eliminate world hunger and poverty, but I’ll deal with my guilt later because if I don’t have my latte someone local- as in the line in front of me talking on their cell phone - will have to die.

I used to not feel this way. I used to love waiting for the Fat Man, even as an adult. I loved thinking about the Christmas morning to come and all those that had gone before.

There was the Christmas that I nearly threw up in the car on the way to the grandparents’. My dad had never really made good on his threat to pull over when we were using the back seat as an enhanced interrogation technique device. Who knew that all it took was one retch aimed into a plastic bag for my dad to bend all the rules of physics. I believe he actually created a worm hole or stopped time to get the car on the shoulder as quickly as he did.

Another favorite was our first Christmas in Argentina. That year’s highs could even melt the Frosty of the imagination. We had this pathetic little tree in this breezeless apartment. We had just spent a day in airports and on planes. Still, we had Christmas dinner together, opened gifts and enjoyed ourselves. Santa even found us.

To be honest, I think the reason I am a bit more misanthropic this year has to do with the same reason Santa Claus is the Fat Man. Santa’s rotundity is a symbol of abundance. The holiday season, from Thanksgiving until at least the First of the New Year, is all about abundance.

This year I am not feeling so abundant. I lost the last two links to the holiday celebrations of my childhood. My grandmothers imprinted on my heart and in my memory the fundamentals of holiday joy. Now they are gone and it is up to us to create Christmas without them. While in some ways it is freeing to keep what we liked of the family traditions and throw out what we don’t, in other ways there is a finality to the thought that those Christmases are long past and will never be again.

Perhaps the true reason I become a misanthrope this time of year is that the Christmas of reality never quite measures up to the Christmas of nostalgia. There is a pain in the heart that refuses to be satisfied without paying homage to Christmas past.

Colored Christmas Light Catastrophe of 2010

2009-12-20T21:55:00.002-05:00

I am sitting in my living room, drinking a cup of tea in my pjs and thick, fluffy socks watching a horror movie. Probably not the best plan as I have already scared myself twice. I scared myself once when I went upstairs to the bathroom. That almost had disastrous results requiring a carpet cleaning. The second time, I nearly died when I saw my own reflection in the window in the kitchen while making a cup of tea.

It probably has something to do with the fact I am enjoying my Christmas lights. The tree is beautiful. I bought a pre-lit one and then had to mess with things. The tree had only white lights on it, which is what I thought I wanted. Then I plugged it in and decided that not only did I want a tree with colored lights on it, but I also wanted a tree with more lights on it.

The first attempt was great until three quarters of the way up the tree. I noticed a single light was burned out. It did not affect the rest of the lights. No one would have noticed it, except me and perhaps my dad. Actually no perhaps about it, he would have noticed. Then we would have had the whole, how much that sucks that one light was burned out in the string and how it made the tree’s ratio of green lights to blue, yellow and red off. So, I decided that I would find a new, green bulb and plug it in.

What seemed so logical and simple resulted in another two hours of hell known as the Colored Christmas Light Catastrophe of 2010.

I removed the dud light. Then all the lights past that point went dark. Yeah. This should have been the first clue that something had gone horribly wrong. I ignored the truth and plugged the new green light in the socket. Nothing. Thinking that perhaps there was something wrong with the electricity, I unplugged the lights and plugged them back in with only 75% success. Then I thought perhaps there was something wrong with the plug. I unplugged the lights and then plugged them back in. Again, I only experienced 75% success.

At this point Hubby comes in and remarks, “That sucks that those last few lights don’t work. I guess you will have to take them off the tree and start again.” I think I said something like “Jeepers!” but I don’t remember.

I took the lights off the tree and pulled out another string. I asked for Hubby’s assistance. He obliged with decent humor. We made it halfway through the string before realizing that the prongy plug was at the top and the prong-free plug was at the bottom. There was some prolonged discussion as to the responsible party for the error. Some observations were made about the ability to string Christmas tree lights by both parties. We reached détente by agreeing to correct the error and move on.

Two hours after I started, the tree had lights and tinsel. Yeah! The next morning my mom helped me finish hanging the ornaments and putting the candy canes on the branches.
I enjoy the holidays, but I am really beginning to understand why people hire things like tree decorating, gift shopping and present wrapping out.

I used to think these were the types of jobs generated by the idle rich. Now I know that these jobs form an integral part of our holiday economy and help reduce the seasonal divorce rate. I am adding them to my Jobs To Be Hired Out to Preserve Sanity. I think I will put them at spots 15, 16, and 17 on the list – after packing, moving and house painting and before ironing, oven cleaning and defrosting the fridge.

11 Days 'Til Solstice

2009-12-10T13:00:00.000-05:00

I don’t think winter is going to wait for the solstice. We got a brief taste on Monday and it was a bitter brew of cold, slick roads, and traffic accidents. It was enough to make you forget about Tiger Woods and all of his self-induced problems. Now they are predicting more of the same for tomorrow. At least I have figured out the heating system in the house. Monday got pretty cold and it would have helped if I had known that the heat was turned off due to some scheme of Hubby’s to figure something out. I didn’t look all that cute in my pants, shirt, thick, red and white polka dot robe, and a throw wrapped around my shoulders. At least the blinds were up and the neighbors didn’t have to see me in my less than fashionable ensemble.

By Monday afternoon, I had given up trying to do anything but sitting on the couch under a couple of blankets with my knitting, watching Law and Order: Criminal Intent. I had already braved the crazy traffic to go to the store. A pot of chili and a pan of lasagna isn’t worth all that, trust me. So, I didn’t feel the least bit guilty to be sitting under the blankets with some sticks and string.

I was kind of amazed that I remembered how to knit, especially since it had been so long since I had sat down and just knit. I had forgotten how much I missed my knitting time. What little time I had for craft I used to spin on my drop spindle because any time I sat down for a few minutes, exhaustion caught up with me and ran me over.

Knitting in my house feels different from knitting at the apartment. First, the light in the house is way better than it ever thought about being in the apartment. Second, the view is so much better. Then there is the stillness and peace – not that there wasn’t in the apartment. I am an urban dweller and I don’t mind the noise of the city. We still have traffic and the sounds of the trains, but not living down the embankment from the interstate I don’t hear the constant thrum of the traffic. Even with the traffic and trains, there is this stillness that comes around 7 or so that lasts until morning.

I feel that slowly I am reclaiming my life. Some parts are the same as BM (before the move, the initials are hilarious because I am five) and other parts are better.

I am back with my knitting group after a long absence. I missed them and the space allows me to see them in a different light and appreciate them all the more.

My contact with Hubby some evenings is limited to asking what he is doing when he comes up from the Man Cave for air. If he begins to develop mole-like features, I will start to worry.
On those evenings, I can sit watching my favorite t.v. shows, burning my “stinky” candles, and knitting. It’s good for those days when I see people with lots of needs and me with so little ability to help more than listen.

I like that I have a separate kitchen and dining room.

The 2nd floor and basement bathrooms are not always convenient. Sometimes this leads to Hubby making impolite inquiries when my hand is on the bathroom doorknob. My stock answer is “Wait and see”.

The hot tub is great, or it will be when we actually use it. Let’s just say you can’t just put a whack of water in it, turn it on and climb in it unless you want to get some nasty skin infection. At the spa place there was a lot of blah, blah, blah PH; blah, blah, blah cloudy water – I am given to understand that is bad; blah, blah, blah bacteria build-up.

Total non-sequitur… There is actually a list of the most fascinating people of 2009. For some reason I am not on it. I am debating whether or not to watch the show to get tips for 2010.

Most of all, I think it is way ironic that nuns live across the street from me. Hopefully they will be good neighbors and not host loud, raucous parties.

Week One and I Am Still Alive

2009-12-09T21:37:00.000-05:00

The worst part about buying a house is that you have to have some mechanism for moving all the crapola in your current residence to your new residence. I think that the reason castles had moats was to discourage the liege from building a bigger, better castle down the street. Moving was bad enough, but taking your stuff across the moat down the street across the new, wider, deeper moat into your new, bigger, better castle was just too much. I also believe the reason the Vikings plundered much of northern Europe, England and Ireland was that they wanted to move there, but didn’t want to have to take all their stuff across the North Sea.

Moving is the great revealer. Moving drags all the stuff one has accumulated out into the open, forcing one to either put it in a box to move, throw it away or give it away. Moving also drags all one’s yarn stash into the open for one’s spouse to see. This produces no small amount of stress.
After all of this, I am happy to say that I am alive. The move did not kill me. The move did not provoke me to kill Hubby, although the temptation certainly presented itself on numerous occasions and still threatens to recur. I have begun to enjoy the house, though not fully as we are in stage 543 of the move – unpacking. Whoever came up with this idea is the worst person ever. Live through the move, only to take your stuff out of the boxes you worked so hard to get things into in the first place. YEAH!

I had my first dinner party, makeshift as it was the day after the move. We had pasta and salad provided by a good friend of mine. We ate on the good china as that is what we could find. It was a lot of fun and I wasn’t too exhausted to enjoy it. That says a lot.

Now that we have been in the house for about a week, I am getting used to not being able to find things and the millions of decisions about where to put things when I do find them. We have also quit having our own reality show as witnessed through the front windows of the house that remained blindless after the pre-move painting until we could maneuver the blinds out of the garage and get them hung. I am sure the neighbors were getting tired of seeing me in my red and white polka dot bathrobe. It would not have been so bad except our neighbors across the street are nuns and I didn’t want them thinking that pagans had moved in across the street. Then again perhaps from their perspective pagan or Baptist is the same.

The best decision we made was the after the move self care. We gave ourselves a few days to live in the space before trying to decide where to put everything. I have also enjoyed doing a little decorating – nothing that would grace the pages of Architectural Digest, but enough that it doesn’t look like a frat flop house.

Hubby has been working in the Man Cave. The Man Cave is beginning to look pretty nice. He put in a new outlet there so he can use the microwave and have a small fridge for his man snacks. I will no longer have to stop breathing when he works from home, as he will now be able to work from the Man Cave. The only problem with the Man Cave is that Hubby has become a nerdy cliché. At least I am not his parents and he isn’t some socially retarded nerdy hacker who has to team up with Bruce Willis and save the planet.

I am trying to organize my room. My room overlooks the back yard. It has several windows and good, natural light, which I need for writing, knitting and spinning. The space doesn’t feel like my own, yet. Actually, I feel that way about the entire house. At least I have stopped waking up with that sense of not knowing where I am and how to find the bathroom.

I've Hit the Trifecta

2009-10-15T20:32:00.000-05:00

Between the whole house thing, the sick hubby thing and the swine flu thing it has been quite a week.

My journey towards homeownership keeps trudging along. We are still hopeful that we will close at the end of the month. Of course finding the house and getting all the negotiation has been a small part of the process. Now I am awake nights thinking about paint colors, decorating, packing, and all the stuff that has to be done to move into said house. At least it has a hot tub.

Unfortunately do not have ownership and access to hot tub. Of no use until dramafest is over and then not as much use. Already regret homeownership as benefits are useless to me now and only pain of homeownership in foreseeable future.

Have come to believe same psychology in homeownership as with parenthood. All those people who haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since conception suffering from sleep deprivation euphoria and proselytizing for their cult. If conception part were less enjoyable, no one would join cult. Have no idea how homeownership cult works or how sucked in. Too late now. Have become pod person. At least am pod person with hot tub.

Sick Hubby has assisted the sleepless nights by coughing in my face and in my general direction since Saturday. I have learned that this is worse that the loud coughing that wakes me up at 3 a.m. Unable to work as Hubby spends all day “working” from home and texting me every time he takes his temperature. Ability to work is further complicated by Hubby’s endless texting obsession with homeownership countdown.

I am counting down the days of the incubation period to determine when and if I will be able to return the favor. Am beginning to regret commitment to vaccinations against bugs as makes payback more difficult.

Work is dominated by war against swine flu. Downstairs vaccine fridge was star on local t.v. news as filmed the lack of adequate vaccine in an effort to appease public and ask for patience. Downstairs fridge now demanding fan mail and all access to be negotiated through her agent – the upstairs vaccine fridge.

I will be getting vaccinated tomorrow. Elected to have the dead virus shot instead of live virus nasal spray. Was certain that if I took the live virus that it would mate with the three half dead viruses in the seasonal vaccine and mutate into super flu. Have no desire to be patient zero for next pandemic flu.

Currently fighting the urge to make self a foil helmet to combat looney brain waves from conspiracy theorists regarding swine flu vaccine. Apparently all other medical technology has been allowed to innovate and progress except vaccination technology. The reason for delay in swine flu vaccine is the need to wrestle infected pigs to ground and scrape infected ick from them to then directly infect humans by scratching them with some crude implement a la Edward Jenner and small pox.

Must take possession of house and hot tub soon to preserve sanity and good nature.

Where Dreams Go To Die

2009-10-06T13:42:00.001-05:00

I know where dreams go to die. They go house hunting.

Hubby and I are house hunting. This has not been one of the more enjoyable experiences of married life. Buying a house is a lot like a wedding. In our minds there is this idea of what constitutes the perfect, personalized expression of ourselves and our love – then there are the budgetary realities.

Unlike a wedding, however, buying a house is not a one day event whose details quickly pass into the fog of memory.

Buying a house is more like the commitment of marriage – once you sign the papers the only way out is divorce – or a mysterious fire incident.

Finding a house is a lot like dating – there are a lot who say they are cute, cozy, sexy, and have to be seen to be believed that turn out to be psycho axe murderers. Houses are no different.

My dreams died early in the process, like vampire who have been staked, beheaded and their mouths stuffed full of garlic, never to rise again.

The first place we saw was a supposedly 80% rehabbed, converted church. A man must have estimated the amount of completion. I will only say this, 80% can be defined in such a way to encompass anywhere from 30% to 80%, just as 10 inches can encompass anywhere from an half inch to the average six. Also, 80% does not mean that the rehab work is a) good, b) competent or c) adheres to the commonly accepted definition of craftsmanship. Suffice it to say that if two preachers’ kids think a church house would be hell to live in, there is probably something wrong. This is where my dream of coolness went to die.

My second dream of awesomeness crashed and burned a couple of days later. The house was beautiful on line. I had already pictured putting my studio in the solarium. I spoke to the real estate agent to be told that the owners had horrid taste in carpet and wall paper and not to let that put me off the house.

What the real estate agent should have said was the house has gross carpet and wall paper, but the real issues are the stairs of death to the basement, the kitchen that needs some serious rehab work, and bathrooms that are a step up from outhouse and bucket showers. At least then I would not have felt like crying at the thought of the beautiful fireplaces with fabulous tile work and original oak mantles, oak pocket doors, and hardwood floors slipping from my grasp.

When you stand in one room and come up with $15K of work that needs to be done just to make the place somewhere you want to live and knowing that you aren’t married to Brad Studopolis handyman, that house is not for you. No, if I can’t fix it with an Ikea card, forget it.

I will not bore you with the details of all the lies we read in house descriptions. Then again if people wrote the truth (i.e. there is a 20% slope in the floor of the kitchen, foundation shifts that have cracked the walls and ceiling, we just slapped a new coat of paint on the walls without any prep work and we were too lazy to sand the floors enough to get rid of the pet peepee stains) people wouldn’t even look at, much less buy their house. It would have been helpful and saved me a lot of agony and time if people could tell the truth. Just like the guy who says that he loves chick flicks and reads all the Oprah picks, but only reads the IMDB synopsis of the films and the reader reviews of the books. He should just say that he prefers WWF to watching the She Cried No channel. At least you know what you are getting yourself into and can move on from there.

Hubby and I are still married, even though he invited his parents, without previous discussion or warning to join us on the final walk through before making an offer on a house. Hubby and I are still married, even though he has spoken ad naseaum about all of his alternative energy plans. Hubby and I are still married, even though the last two weeks have been the stressful cappers to a stressful six months. I have decided not to think about what comes next, the big move. I prefer to be Scarlet O’Hara for awhile.

Monday, Bloody Monday

2009-09-28T09:17:00.001-05:00

It has not been a good morning at the Rubicon.

First, I picked up my cell phone on the way to the grocery and discovered that I had not charged it since Thursday. It was dead, D E A D dead, dead as a doornail, dead as a hammer, dead as a cock roach legs up on the kitchen floor dead.

Then, as I got off the exit to get to the grocery store, some moronic woman talking on a cell phone ran a red light and swerved into my lane nearly hitting me head on. I almost needed new underwear, the clenching for impact saved me.

Mercifully the grocery store was quiet. I got my shopping done, only to realize in the checkout lane that I had forgotten my reusable bags in the backseat of the car. Those little goober frogs of the Amazons are now extinct due to my forgetfulness.

As I got on the interstate, I realized I forgot to get two things - tortillas and most importantly, toilet paper.

This distracted me enough to cause me to miss the exit to stop by the UPS depot to pick up a package. Their driver gave our package to one of the neighbors and our neighbors' package to us. We were nice and gave the neighbors their package. The neighbors had UPS pick ours up and take it to the depot. I can think of several things to call them.

I would have turned around to fix all the above, except I had frozen food and other stuff that needed to be kept cold in the car.

In other news, I may be getting my ability to sit in the front room to watch t.v. and knit again. Hubby has beaten his game, God of War. I had been watching him play some, but that gets annoying after a while. He is making noises about starting it again, because he really liked it. I hope he waits a few days, as the new seasons of some shows have started and I am being deprived. I have some Christmas knitting to do, so it would be in his best interest to let me have an hour a night to do my thing.

Of course watching t.v. now is deprivation of decent programming. The networks have determined that paying decent writers is too much. Why pay professionals when you can download off You Tube some guy getting hit in the crotch with a wiffle ball bat by his three year old and call it programming?

It seems that Americans prefer watching train wrecks and things that are so unnatural and wrong (Tom DeLay dancing?! I think I just threw up a little in my own mouth!) that you can hear the brains rotting. I have been surprised that a couple of shows have survived the summer because I liked them. Usually if I like a show it is the kiss of death.

There are those who will say I am a snob. When it comes to t.v., books, and yarn, they would be right.

Wool Gathering 2009

2009-09-21T14:54:00.000-05:00

As an adult, I have long ago realized that things rarely go exactly as planned or meet expectations. Since I enter into most anticipated events with this as my given, I am a lot less stressed. This modus vivendi also means that what would be a good time under impossible expectations can be a great time as I no longer expect perfection.

This past weekend was spectacularly awesome – even by my standards. First, it was the annual Wool Gathering at Young’s Dairy in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Second, the day was perfect – not too hot, not too cold, sunny, with a slight breeze. Third, I had been able to convince my mom and aunt (my mom’s younger sister) to join me on the trek.

We rode up together and died laughing as we talked to each other. After everything that has happened, it was good to just talk and laugh. The drive seemed really short – a lot shorter than when I drive up alone. We got to Young’s Dairy and the Flat Marcos (FM) adventures began.

I had a picture of my nephew and gave it to my mom to tape to a Swiffer handle so she could take pictures with him during the day. FM saw llamas, alpacas, sheep, and angora bunnies. He got his picture taken in hay stacks, corn shocks, piles of fleece, at lunch, dinner and brunch. FM got to do a lot. FM was a pretty good companion for the day as he didn’t whine, cry, throw a fit, or need to go to the bathroom constantly. He was the perfect child.

Mom and my aunt were good companions, too as they didn’t whine, cry, or need to go to the bathroom constantly. My mom was even a good sport about getting close enough to the livestock to get a picture with her and her grandchild next to a pen of llama. I was impressed.

As usual, there were plenty of options for the fiber addict. I had to maintain tunnel vision – spindle, fiber (no yarn), some stitch markers, a swift, and home – to keep from going crazy. I even resisted temptation of the sale bin at one of my favorite yarn dyers. It was not due to my virtue, but more that I refused to let myself linger.

I was afraid my shopping conservatism was putting a cramp in my mom and aunt’s style. They are marathon shoppers and I am not. I got my spindle and fiber, sat in a chair and started to use it. I could have sat there the rest of the day spinning with my new spindle, were it not for the sun and my lack of sunscreen. They got finished and we went to eat some of the best ice cream in the world.

In short, this is the kind of day I dream of, and it wasn’t even finished.

We had lunch with one set of my knitting friends and dinner with another. There was a point when finding the restaurant for dinner seemed a bit iffy. I wondered as we passed the entrance of Wright State several times why they had a row of porta potties by the entrance. We found the restaurant, but the burning questions of the porta potties never got answered.

Several of us spent the night in the same hotel and we stayed up talking, knitting and spindling until midnight. I stayed up a little longer because I was dying to ply some of the singles I had spun on my new spindle.

I bought a Greensleeves spindle in the Loki model. It is a 0.7 oz spindle and I love it. It spins incredible thin singles. The balance is great. Of course the fiber I am using to practice with is awesome, too. I got 4oz of Three Bags Full Signs of Spring fiber in a dark purple blend. The fiber is a mix of silk and merino cross. The silk has slubs in it that when plied make a tweedy yarn. I think the only things that made me stop spinning was the right hand cramp and the left finger spasm. Just like the ice cream after lunch and the margarita at dinner, it was probably too much of a good thing.

The weekend with my mom, aunt and friends was just long enough to be fabulous and short enough that we didn’t get tired of one another. I was glad that the people that are so important to me got to meet each other. My friends definitely learned where my storytelling gene comes from – and they only met half the equation. My mom and aunt were able to see that all the friends I talk about on a regular basic are in fact real and not figments of my imagination.

I am already looking forward to next year. I am already researching what event we can attend. I am hoping that my other aunt and some of my cousins can join us. I have also thought that perhaps we can pay for the hotel and event by booking a performance at the local comedy club – The McDonald Girls on the Road. Then again, we would just look at each other after one word and spend the rest of the time laughing. For some reason that doesn’t translate well to larger audiences.

Happy Birthday - Not!

2009-09-09T08:00:00.000-05:00

Anyone who tells you being married is all romantic dinners, roses and mind blowing sex is either 16 or so crazy in love that reality is on a picnic. There is a reason for all the better or worse stuff in the vows. Of course people just repeat them blindly because if you went into marriage thinking about all the sickness, poorer, worse, and other vagaries of marriage, no one in their right mind would actually sign up for that.

Let’s face it, if it weren’t for sex, the human race would be segregated by gender. Air quality warnings and haz mat suits issued at the checkpoint to Maletopia. Testosterone supplements issued at the checkpoint to Eve’s Paradise, lest the men fear growing a vagina (as my brother would say) just from exposure to candles, salads, and chick flicks.

For those of us in reality, marriage is a constant state of compromise, tolerance, and the knowledge that killing one’s spouse for leaving the seat up, again, does not meet the standard of severe psychological distress and will get you 25 to life.

A marriage can chug along this way until one spouse becomes such a teenager that the other spouse feels more like a juvie parole officer than a spouse.

Hubby had the misfortune of having his birthday fall on the same day as the visitation for grandmother.

It would not have been so bad were it not for the fact that it was also THE birthday of the slide over the hill – the big 4 – 0. Given where we were and the gloom, there wasn’t a celebration. The best we could do was Long John Silver’s and a Best Western. Hubby would have preferred Bravo’s or Red Lobster and a night at the Marriott or Hyatt. Hubby would have preferred not spending the evening in the funeral home in an introvert’s computer nerd’s nightmare – people, people he didn’t know, and more people with emotional stuff going on.

We did celebrate with his parents at one of Craig’s favorite places – Maggiano’s – a week later. We had great Italian food. His mom made a delicious chocolate cake complete with candles. There were so many candles on the top of the cake that when Hubby blew them out, we almost died from smoke inhalation.

He did manage to blow them out with one breath. I wonder what he wished for? I hope it doesn’t entail gold chains and a red sports car.

What Comes Next

2009-09-08T11:28:00.000-05:00

We buried my grandmother two Saturdays ago. In many ways it was more difficult and sadder than when we buried my grandfather.

My grand parents had paid for and planned most of the funeral arrangements. When my grandfather died, it was all about what my grandmother wanted and needed. When my grandmother died, it became about other things.

As I sat in the funeral home for the visitation, it occurred to me that every one has some philosophy about the after life – even nihilists. I will admit to being a bit schizophrenic in my beliefs. On the one hand, I believe we are transformed into pure spirit beings joining with the Creator of the Universe. On the other hand, I think of the afterlife like this luxury resort where people get to do what gives them pleasure and satisfaction the whole day long.

It is this last imagery I use when I imagine my maternal grandparents.

My grandmother is most assuredly cooking for half the inhabitants of the resort and having them over for dinner. If the luxury resort is perfect, my grandmother will have this wonderful expanding table and dining room that will easily set 10 or 10,000. If the luxury resort is perfect, there will be a telephone so my grandmother can call her sisters and let them know to the last soul how many ate at her table.

My grandfather will have a wood shop where he can whittle and create his tables, chairs, and yard art. Each room in the luxury resort and each dining table will have a tooth pick holder he made.

For my paternal grandparents, I think of the after life as a spirit place.

My grandfather’s body gave out on him and we buried him 5 years ago. The last few years of his life, he slowly suffocated from emphysema. My grandmother’s mind has given out on her. Her body keeps going. Arthritis put her in a wheel chair and unable to do most things.

For them I imagine a place where bodies are redundant. It is enough that the spirit lives in a place of light and peace.

Thoughts about the afterlife are like funerals – they are more for the living than the dead and that is fine with me.

The Birthday that Ends All Birthdays

2009-08-18T13:59:00.000-05:00

Today is my maternal grandmother’s birthday. It will be her last. She has gone from dying by inches to dying by millimeters from cancer.

This morning the memory that has been most present in my mind is from a few months ago. I stand with my mom in the house where she grew up. We are in the middle bedroom looking down at a dress. My aunt has impeccable taste. The dress is absolutely beautiful. The dress is the palest pink of a cottage rose. As I stand there looking at that stunning dress, my heart clenches and my throat tightens. In my soul I know that the next time I see this dress, my grandmother will be wearing it at her funeral.

My grandmother is over 90. She is a fabulous cook. She is a skilled quilter, although in recent years she hasn’t been able to quilt as much due to failing eyesight and poor physical health. Although she and my grandfather were never rich, my grandparents found ways to share what they had with others less fortunate.

The most unfortunate part of my grandparents’ end of life is how it robbed them of what they loved most. My grandfather slowly got to the point where he could no longer even whittle all that much. My grandmother could no longer cook, quilt, read, or even talk on the telephone.

When I was little, my grandparents seemed impossibly old. As they were grandparents, they didn’t have a life as children or young adults. No, they sprang old with grandchildren from that place that all grandparents originate. We saw pictures of strangers with the same names and younger faces. Now that I am older, when I see the same pictures, my grandparents seem impossibly young and beautiful.

I have been blessed that my grandparents have lived as long as they have. I began to lose them in my 30’s. I have known them as a child and as an adult. I have been blessed to have so many good memories of time with them.

One of my favorite memories of my maternal grandparents as an adult is a trip to visit them over Easter weekend. I had stopped at the Target in Lexington to pick up a couple of things and decided to buy little baskets and candy for my grandparents. (They had candy time every afternoon.) I lay in the bedroom on Easter Sunday morning pretending to be asleep as I heard them getting up and around. I heard my grandmother say, “Look, Daddy, candy!” The dinning room chairs creaked and I heard them empty the baskets and compare their loot. I heard the happiness in their voices and I could imagine them as children. It has been the joy of this moment and others that have made it easier to face the inevitable.

Memory is akin to opening an oyster. Not all events rate a beautiful, fully formed pearl. I count myself lucky to have a string of opera pearls instead of a choker.

What do I Want? What do I Need?

2009-08-12T07:00:00.000-05:00

What do I want? What do I need?
What do I want? I want a peaceful soul.
What do I need? I need a bigger gun.
Det. Charlie Crews, Life

Lately, I have asked myself these same questions and return to the same answers as Crews.

I have determined that the real issue with terminally ill grandparents isn’t dealing with impending death. No, the real issue with terminally ill grandparents is seeing your horrible terrible future. Not the horrible, terrible future of what your death can be like -they have OD’s of morphine for that. No, it is the horrible, terrible future whereby it occurs to you that you and your siblings needs to start talking about things now before your parents are in that place where they need help with activities of daily living.

Both of my grandfathers and my husband’s only remaining grandparent have died in the past five years. Shortly after my paternal grandfather died, my paternal grandmother was moved to a nursing home because she could no longer take care of herself. She has dementia and staying home alone without any supervision or regular visitors would not have been a good thing. My maternal grandmother has only recently gotten to the point she can no longer live alone.

What I see is the many ways denial, guilt, control, anger, grief, and unspoken expectations have made the situation even more difficult for all involved.

A lot of the arguments and feelings are leftovers from the fact that my parents lived overseas for 25 years. Not everyone agreed with their choices. Then when my parents retired, people continued to have expectations about what they would do or how they would behave to make up for 25 years of being “absentee” offspring and siblings.

I think what is most awful about the entire situation is that I see and experience how difficult it is to stop playing the role you grew up playing or expecting others to do the same. In our desire to control situations and others, we don’t allow them to change, mature or be who they want and need to be. If only they would do what we think they should do, then our lives would be better. If only they would do what I tell them to do, then things would be better.

Even more complicated is allowing jealousy and self-centeredness to rewrite the past. When jealousy, anger and self-centeredness writes our lives it is always from a place of never enough, making our world so small that it will barely contain one, much less anyone else who might care or want to.

I used to believe that my family would never be like the ones you see on t.v. on those talk shows. Now I am not so sure.

What I do know is that I have enough good memories of holidays with extended family together, of laughing, joking, talking, playing games and happiness that perhaps they will last for the rest of my life.

Still I desire a peaceful soul and sometimes wish I had a bigger gun.

When Life is Like High School

2009-08-11T14:48:00.000-05:00

The Summer of Socks continues. I am lucky not to get too bored with socks. Then again, there are a thousand ways to knit them – kind of like Scheheradaze escaping death by telling the king 1001 stories.

One of the new things I have learned during the Summer of Socks has little to do with knitting and a lot to do with people. I consider myself rather tech savvy and have heard about a lot of things. I had heard that the internet was full of a-holes, but had no previous personal experience of a-holery other than the McMegaa-holes whole think I need penis enlargement, want to help launder Nigerian money, or need Viagra without a prescription.

This is not to say I haven’t had some moments with the internet, like typing what I thought was the domain name of Dick’s Sporting Goods only to be caught up in a pornado of pop-ups of nekkid guys who weren’t posing for women. Yeah!

Then I read about someone who had suffered a serious case of cyber harassment and meanness within the larger knitting community. I was incredulous because this was so incongruent with the behavior of the knitters I know.

I did know that knitters could be grumpy, whiney little girls from past participation in a sock club. People hated the colors and the patterns. They felt compelled to complain and moan instead of using it as an opportunity to stretch themselves. Still it really didn’t occur to me that knitters would or could go beyond that.

The knitters I know, even those I don’t agree with on political or social issues are good, generous people. Although the knitting unites us, the other subjects – even during a contentious election year – did not cause us to become like caged, feces slinging chimpanzees.

Now those who know me would most probably say that I don’t have much of a brain mouth filter. Still, I have enough to know not to say anything hateful, spiteful or hurtful. This is not only true when I am sitting in my knitting group, but is also true when I am writing e-mail and other things on the internet. The fundamental reason – besides being raised better than that – is that I don’t consider myself to be anonymous on the internet.

Just as the a-hole in traffic doesn’t mind driving like a maniac leaving havoc in his or her wake because they feel entitled to drive anyway they want because the rest of us don’t matter, people on the internet act the same way. The anonymity gives them a sense of power and freedom they don’t have in their everyday lives. Again, there are people who think the way to fame on-line is by writing all types of scurrilous things about someone else.

Now I graduated high school during the Reagan administration. I was so over how high school students treated each other then, and it has been my fervent desire not to have to relive it. The truth is that many people never truly graduate from high school. It still defines who they are and how they act, which for the rest of us is a pity indeed.

Woe is Me

2009-08-04T11:05:00.001-05:00

I began July with the best of intentions. I decided that this was the month that I would actually knit my socks for the Socks from the Toe Up knit along on Ravelry. I decided that this was the month that I would perform a complete decrapification of my house. Instead, July became a drama sandwich.

In the beginning, I was moving a long on my goals. I had chosen a lovely red hand dyed sock yarn from Fleece Artist for my knit along socks. I had done a decent job decrapifying the kitchen. I had organized pots and pans, purged the plasticware, and so forth. Then things started to go a little sideways.

Things got pretty intense at work due to some drama outside of my control. Although I am not directly involved, I am being super cautious about what I do and say.

I had a two day migraine one week and then a stomach virus the next.

I had the phantom short skein of Opal meltdown. For some unknown reason, I had forgotten that I had divided the skein into two, 50 gram balls. Then, as I was knitting sock number one, I fell into a pit of despair thinking that I only had enough yarn for the one sock. The next day I found the second skein.

I had the corroded battery fiasco that left me stranded, not once, but twice in as many days. The short story is that those stupid pieces of felt that are supposed to prevent corrosion are just a big waste of effort. Batteries really don’t work well when one of the posts is covered in corroded groody. The other reality is that I don’t function well standing in the rain with a socket wrench cleaning corrosion off a car battery on my way home from work.

Each time I went to knit night was another opportunity to be attacked by the jealously monster. It seems that my knit friends are all doing exciting things or getting cool swag. A couple went to Meg Swansen’s knit camp. One is planning a knitting and cooking tour of Italy. Another just got back from a cruise she took with several girlfriends and before than Disney World. This is the same friend whose husband got her the coolest knitting bag ever – a Tom Swift. Still another friend has done several cool knitting weekends. My dyer knitting friend is going to Sock Summit as a vendor.

Then there is pitiful me with a bad headache, the inability to be further than three seconds from a bathroom, with battery corrosion burns on a couple of fingers, knitting drama, and the plagues of Egypt. Life is woefully unfair. I may take to my bed for a month.

At least there are new episodes of True Blood, Criminal Intent, The Closer and Burn Notice to dull the pain.

Confessions of a Snobaholic

2009-07-15T07:00:00.000-05:00

I will begin with an observational aside. I wrote this sitting in a Starbucks, drinking coffee, having finished reading The 19th Wife. Some guy sat at the table for two previously occupied by two drug reps strategizing how they can piss me off in my doctor’s office by describing their inducements to get seen more rapidly. Anyway, single married dude is staring intently at the butts and legs of these three chicks in shorts and miniskirt. He is staring at them with such pervy intensity that I am tempted to pour the ice from my iced latte on his lap. Of course, in his testosterone induced oblivion he probably wouldn’t notice. This is why women think men are pigs. If he had any finesse at all, he’d wear dark, European sunglasses. He would look like a dork, but it would be less obvious he was a perv.

Back to business….

Recently my mom brought it to my attention that I am a snob. What began the conversation is lost to memory, but where it ended up still burns brightly in my mind. At first, I was not happy as I see myself as a defender of the proletariat, the oppressed, the forgotten. How, then, is it possible anyone would think I am a snob?

So, I began searching for clues. I settled on the following evidence. I refuse to drink regular coffee as life is too short to drink crappy coffee. I refuse to eat cheese that tastes like plastic or has the words “cheese food product” in its name on a regular basis. I have a habit of shouting out corrections for crimes against grammar perpetrated on television. My current peeve is the use of less instead of fewer. (If you can count it, use fewer; if not, use less: e.g. There are fewer potato chips in this bag than this can of pressed, freeze dried potato product. There is less air in this scuba tank James Bond used to find the decoder machine in the sunken sub than this full air tank.) I will admit I spent a fair amount of time in high school mitigating the worst of my accent because people think a Southern accent equals stupid. I have long given up knitting with cheap acrylic yarn, favoring instead indie hand dyed yarn.

After 5 minutes of thinking about it, I began to wonder how I didn’t pick up on the signs of my snobbery earlier. Pontificating on that for 5 minutes, I was horrified to realize that it was true, I am a snob and not just about a few things, but about tons of things. Five minutes after that, I began to think about how snobs get such a bad rap.

What’s so wrong with being a snob? Without snobs, we would still be drinking unfiltered beer, living without refrigeration, would not have air bags in cars, mani pedis, or handpaint yarn.

The Saga of June Chapter 4

2009-07-14T07:00:00.000-05:00

I was excited on Monday to be going to the Space Center in Huntsville. I like space. It’s pretty, magnificent, and still largely unknown. Hubby and I are also fans of Sci Fi, in no small part because we are post-moon landing children. I believe in the space of StarTrek and all the possibilities when humankind unites in the common goals of science and exploration. What I did not want to have happen on my trip to the Space Center was to be confronted with Nazis and worship of the military. I was so naïve. Just like the discovery of rock tools and gunpowder, it seems like the human race is not happy with new technology until we figure out how to kill people with it.

Intellectually, I knew the space program was in good part military. What I did not realize was the extent of military involvement in the development of the space program. Intellectually, I knew that the so-called founder of rocket science was a Nazi. What I did not expect was that the Space Center was in large part a shrine to a Nazi and a war criminal.

Werner von Braun only escaped the noose of Nuremburg because the US was eager to snatch up all the scientists ahead of the Russians. Because of Werner von Braun, London, England endured the barrage of V-2 rockets. Because of Werner von Braun, untold civilians died. Instead of being hailed a hero, Werner von Braun’s name should be pronounced with the same disgust as Eichmann or Mengele. Because he possessed knowledge our government wanted, we helped him and his cronies escape Germany and the Russians. My disgust could not be greater until I saw the tributes to von Braun.

As a writer and avid reader, I think in story. I think about heroes and anti-heroes, villains and blackguards. I am also sensitive to the fact that history and memory are in large part stories we tell ourselves. I abhor a people who tell stories that make villains heroes by omitting their evil deeds.

Hitler knew story. He knew that a good storyteller could make the righteous unrighteous and evil the thing most to be desired – even among those who should know better.

I ended my tour saddened, bug bitten, and still sun poisoned. I wished I didn’t know the things I do, and that people wouldn’t ask me why I was upset and then give me the look when I told them. Most of all I wished I could have kept my idea of peaceful space exploration intact. As I sat there thinking about all I had seen, I allowed myself to believe that given the chance we would militarize space – had militarized space. As I sat there, I understood on a whole new level what fear does to people and a nation – all the things we are willing to believe, do, give up because we are afraid of communists, terrorists, or a yet, unnamed boogeyman.

Summer of Socks and Books

2009-07-13T10:16:00.001-05:00

Since the beginning of June, I have knit nothing but socks. Most of the socks have been of the plain variety. With all that has been going on, I realize that my knitting brain hasn’t been capable of much else. While part of me longs to pick up a shawl or something larger, more substantial, the part of me that needs the seemingly mindless repetitive motion rules the day.

Part of me sees this current obsession as a challenge to see how many skeins of self-patterning yarn I can knit before Labor Day. The thought of getting six or eight pair of socks knit up at once seems crazily optimistic and completely doable. Then there are the ¾ finished pairs of socks that need only a foot or a toe to add to the count. I n my stash the possibilities are endless.

The only impediment to the Great Socking of Summer 2009 has been my current obsession with reading. Since I am still of the prehistoric school and prefer paper and ink, knitting is not always an accompaniment to my reading.

While my knitting has been mindless, my reading has been less so. Since June, I have read 10 of the 11 books in the Dresden Files series, I will cop to them not being high art. In between, I have read Follett’s doorstop World Withougt End. (It is the type of book that makes teenagers hate literature and seasoned readers cry.); The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (A very good, if predictable story. The story is so good you don’t really mind the predictability.); The Lace Reader (Fiber arts plus mystery – a wicked good combination.); and The 19th Wife (Mormon fundamentalists, murders, and redemption.). Next up is Lamb, a gift for my brother – and The Red Wolf Conspiracy.

I used to believe that mindless knitting or reading would cause craft and mental stagnation. I used to believe that mindless knitting and reading disrespected the craft. Neither is true.

Knitting is only knitting and more than knitting. Each sock plain or patterned is better than the last because I have approximately 1200 more stitches of knitting experience. This repetition and patience make a master knitter. It is this repetition that creates socks with machines even tension. It is this repetition that has discouraged many a new knitter, but those of us who have pressed on realize it is the only way to knitting competence.

In much the same way reading is only reading and more than reading. Recently my Mom was shocked to discover I had some schlock in my bag. I will admit Highlander and Vampire pron (if I spelled it correctly, I would get blocked or appear next to Goth Hotties) is not the apex of writing craft. At the same time, I find myself in the story because reading isn’t necessarily about the words.

Reading is about story. Sometimes we adults need morality tales like Aesop’s fables or the story of David and Bathsheba from the Bible.

Recommendation aside…. Regardless of your religious persuasion, I would encourage taking a peek at the stories of David and Bathsheba; Ruth; Deborah and the Bride of Heber; and Dinah in the Old Testament. I have long been of the opinion that people who encourage their children to read the Bible have no idea of the sex, violence, intrigue, and soap opera qualities to some of the stories. It makes it difficult to take some of the theologically pontificating blowhards seriously when you suspect they haven’t read all the stories between the covers.

At other times, we adults need the equivalent of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, or Xena – Warrior Princess. Life being what it is, sometimes you need to imagine what it would be like if some of the Rules of Life were a tiny bit flexible. Believe me there are days I wish they were more like bungee cord and I had a fairy godmother, a magic wand, a sword, knee boots and a metal bra.

The Saga of June Chapter 3

2009-07-09T17:01:00.001-05:00

I awoke the second day much as the first, with Hubby flopping about like a beached flounder and bemoaning the light coming through the windows. I again got up, poured some coffee, and ate my breakfast on the veranda.

When Hubby and I went to Texas the first time, I realized that things are bigger in Texas, especially the boobs and hair. Upon discovering this fact, most people (cough, guys, cough) are not upset. In Alabama they could say the same thing, but about different things.

By Monday, (we arrived Friday night) I noticed the flies. Apparently, Alabama doesn’t have normal flies. No. They have giant a-hole flies that resulted from the overenthusiastic mating of an experiment in splicing barracuda genes into prehistoric black fly DNA. These giant, black flies rip the flesh from your bones. Stay the hell away spray doesn’t dissuade these prehistoric demons from eating you. When they bite you, they also inject some horrible itching venom, so not only are you left with a giant hole in your foot or ankle, but also are left with a huge itching welt that doesn’t respond to Benadryl.

The second thing I discovered was that Alabama must be located in the outer suburbs of hell because the sun was so hot. This is a problem for people like me who descended from the Vikings, Picts, Angles, Saxons, and Irish marauders. It also made me want to find a long boat and head for the closest Northern fjord. Even with my SPF 50 bajillion sunscreen, I got sun poisoning on my right arm. Stupid sun.

All of this meant I spent less time on the veranda and more time indoors, knitting, reading and watching t.v. I was not surprised as the outdoors and I have had a running feud since I was three and the Great Snake in the Driveway Incident. So far it is Kimberly 3, Outdoors 300.

At this time I would like to thank everyone who has pointed out that snakes can climb and have invaded people’s dryers, toilets, and sinks. Thank you for depriving me of my last refuge against the Outdoors. Thank you for making me realize the Outdoors have been laughing at me behind my back for 30 plus years.

The Saga of June 2009 Chapter 2

2009-07-06T11:32:00.002-05:00

They say you see things differently in the full light of day. What they don’t tell you is how early the full light of day shines in your East facing bedroom window in June in Alabama. This would not have been a problem were it not for Senor Grouchy McGripeypants writhing and howling as if he were a vampire the sunlight disintegrated. Thankfully, all I had to do to escape those complaints was to roll out of bed, make myself decent and pour a cup of PREMADE coffee. Hubby’s Uncle 2 was bloody brilliant for that alone.

I took my breakfast of granola, Greek yogurt, and coffee out on the veranda overlooking the lake. It was so nice. It wasn’t too hot. The air wasn’t so humid you felt like you were being pressed into the dirt while breathing dirty pool water. I was thinking that this week might not be so bad. I was thinking how I could get used to this.

We had a good time chatting and catching up. I went inside to protect myself from the bugs and sun to knit and watch some Sci Fi. Things were going pretty well.

We went to eat supper at a local steak house. I enjoy a good steak. I was still enjoying the company. Things were going well.

In most good stories, you get to the big reveal and then realize that a seemingly trivial scene much earlier in the book gave a big clue about how things were going to end. For this saga, dinner at the Outlaw steakhouse was it. Much like the poor dopes in the novels, I had no idea this was it.

When I walked in, I noticed two things. I noticed that the restaurant was very pro-beer and had these monster beer glasses – not that I am anti-beer, but Hubby’s family reunions generally are. That much beer means that they make exponentially more money on the booze than the food. That much beer generally means people go there to drink more than they go there to eat. When we were seated, I noticed that they had a stage for a bar band. I began to have reservations, especially when two dudes started to get their gear out and set-up on stage.

We ordered. I was looking forward to my steak. I felt that I had earned it. I had ordered a strip, medium. Hubby began to grouse as he is not a fan of the beef, chicken or anything else they had on the menu. We waited for our entrees talking about a lot of different things. I was doing my best not to mention anything that the geniuses at a particular news channel my in-laws love might have pontificated upon. I was also doing my best to be rather circumspect about my job, only speaking in generalities about what it was I do on a daily basis.

Our food arrived. I quickly noticed two things. First, I noticed that my definition of a strip steak was vastly different from the restaurant’s definition of a strip steak. Their definition of a strip steak ran more toward the sirloin. I began to believe that was the only steak they had. Second, I noticed that my definition of medium was vastly different from the restaurant’s definition of medium. Their definition of medium ran more toward well done. I wanted to send it back, but determined that people who had that much confusion over cut and doneness of a steak probably would only fail a second time.

This was also the moment that the dudes who had been unloading and setting up their gear on the stage began to warm up. After hearing them sing a bit, I realized that the pro-beer status of the restaurant was more important that I had realized. The patrons drank enough of the aforementioned beer that the music sounded good.

Since we were south of Nashville, our dynamic duo sang country. I also realized that it must be a law in the state of Alabama that if you are a bar band in Alabama, you must know the entire Alabama (the group not the state) songbook.

Now, I am neutral when it comes to country music. Hubby most definitely is not. The more they sang, the more unhappy Hubby became. The more unhappy Hubby became, the more I had to hear about it. This was in super contrast to some of the others at the table who thought the singing was awesome.

We did make it to the parking lot before Hubby’s head exploded. We rode back to the lake house with Hubby talking about his experience of near doom at the restaurant. Personally, I am glad he made it out alive.

Back at the house, I pulled out my knitting and a book. I enjoyed the rest of the evening on the veranda knitting and reading, listening to the others talk. I was working to be on my best behavior. So far it was working. I even went to bed early, only to be awakened by Hubby shoving pillows in the row of windows above the regular windows with the shades on them. This could not be good.

The Saga of June 2009 Chapter 1

2009-06-29T17:28:00.000-05:00

It would be so very groovy to say I spent June on some secret Bondsian or Bournean mission to save knitting from the forces of evil. It would be so awesome to say that I tracked down the miserable bastard who said that tragedy plus time equals comedy and gave him a good piece of my mind, as not only was he miserable, but also was stupid as the day is long. I am still waiting for some things to be funny. It would be something of such envy producing jealousy as to be legendary to say I had a private month in Ireland with the Yarn Harlot, Cat Bordhi, Lime and Violet, REM, U2 and several heartthrobs who shall remain nameless because I couldn’t bear the shame. Alas, no I couldn’t do anything that cool.

The truth is most of June has been spent with family in various venues and by and largely sober.

So, now that I am back in the Land of Blogdom, things might seem a little strange as past and present will be mixed on the blog. Things have been a bit intense in several ways, so I just needed some time to process them. I will be sure to give adequate documentation so that no one contacts Amnesty International and mounts a letter writing campaign respectfully requesting my captors set me free.

Without further adieu or mon dieu, as the case may be, begins the saga of June 2009.

I spent the first week of June getting ready for Hubby’s Family Reunion 2009. This reunion would be in a lake house in Gunthersville, Alabama (which should be renamed Hotashellabama), close to Huntsville. I made up the homemade ice cream mix, did laundry, and made three trips to Target in three days. I also learned that the return clerk doesn’t really consider cargo shorts that are too small even though Hubby wears that size as defective.

On Friday, we loaded up the rental car, a bright red Impala (drove like a brick and took years to get from 0 to 60 but only a nanosecond to go from 60 to 80) and headed South. I was starting the trip out low on energy, patience and good humor. This did not improve when it was my turn to drive. I wouldn’t call it driving. I would call it more like running the construction and bad traffic gauntlet. I also had to contend with a demon possessed GPS and a GPS obsessed husband. It could have been worse, but my imagination fails me.

We arrived at the lake house exhausted, but in one piece.

Public Service Anouncement: Feline AIDS Isn't Funny

2009-05-26T08:53:00.001-05:00

I have a quirky and at times inappropriate sense of humor.

I found it hard not to laugh when my mother-in-law was talking about the recent “tea parties” protesting something or other and how she forgot about giving teabags to someone. A little giggle effervesced in my mind as I thought about her giving a lecture on tea bagging some politician or other. As the giggle did not actually escape, she was none the wiser.

This was not the case during lunch with some of my co-workers on Friday. Everyone has had the experience of being around someone who has an inflated sense of self and who is just plain annoying with his or her tales of moral outrage over the little realities of life. I find it hard to take them seriously. So, as we sat discussing the new television season for the fall – a safe topic of conversation as I find office lunches a conversation minefield – things began to take a bad turn.

It all began with the discussion of the NCIS spin-off. Chris O’Donnell is going to star in it with LL Cool J. I was surprised to hear that bit of news, as I thought from the ending of the NCIS crossover / spin-off pilot episode that Chris O’Donnell’s character had been assassinated. When I mentioned this, the expert on all things t.v. informed me that I was mistaken and why would I think that. When I pointed out that you saw the black SUV pull up, the side door slide open, the barrel of some kind of automatic weapon come out, the ensuing hail of bullets, Chris O’Donnell’s character falling to the pavement riddled with aforementioned bullets, LL Cool J’s character turning in slow mo mouthing “NOOOOOOOO!” and running down the street – still in slow mo - to fall on the pavement and pick up a broken and bleeding Chris O’Donnell in his arms while crying was a good indicator to me that Chris O’Donnell’s character was most probably dead. Apparently, I am not the audience for this show as logically you can survive such a thing quite easily.

Things took an even weirder turn with her next pronouncement about one of her next-door neighbors. In another proof of my observation that life is like living in high school, one of the neighborhood couples is not like the others, so the others have to gang up on them until they conform.

Aside Commentary: I am not sure I want to buy a house because from what I understand all neighbors suck. They have pets that crap in your yard; children that pick your flowers; bushes and trees that hang over the property line (I mean how dare they grow that way! They should know better stupid bushes and trees.); cars that are too loud; or dare to have people over.

The cause of the recent outrage is that one of the neighbor couples, I will call them XX, evicted their cats due to the arrival of one of the X’s pit bulls. Because the cats were now outside cats, the cat owner X accidentally backed over one of the cats when leaving for work. I did not laugh at this point, but wait for it.

To the chagrin of XY neighbors 1, cat owner X just deposited the body of dead cat 1 under one of cat owner X’s shrubs instead of giving dead cat 1 a proper Christian burial. I did not laugh at this point, but wait for it.

XY neighbors 1 then phoned animal control demanding that they make cat owner X give dead cat 1 a proper Christian burial. I did not laugh at this point, but I smirked and said, “Well, given the length of time a dead cat can lay by the side of the road as road kill, XY neighbors 1 should have known where dead cat 1 fell on the list of priorities of animal control.” I got the look that said, “How could you possibly be so insensitive about a dead kitty”.

Because I wasn’t sufficiently upset and filled with outrage and co-misery, co-worker continued. It wasn’t enough that cat owner X backed over her cat. Shortly after the flat cat incident, soon to be dead cat 2 showed up on XY neighbors’ 1 porch looking pitiful, hungry and missing some fur. I was losing interest in the story, but I endured because my mother always taught me to be polite.

Outraged, XY neighbors 1 phoned cat owner X and demanded that she come retrieve her cat from their porch and take it to the vet. Now co-worker assured us that XY neighbors weren’t being unreasonable as they had a tomcat and they could not have an YY cat household. I did not laugh at this point, but wait for it.

Cat owner X complied. The diagnosis was feline AIDS. I chortled.

Now I had heard about feline AIDS, but I had never really thought about it. I had never really thought that cats in the US could get treatment from kitty AIDS, whereas some poor little kid in Africa could not, but this is not the observation one should make during co-worker lunch.

XY neighbors were further outraged that cat owner X had the animal put to sleep instead of treating the disease. I chortled again a little louder.

One of my other co-workers inquired as to the origin of dead cat 2’s AIDS. Co-worker replied, “They think he got it from a fight.”

Without stopping to think, I inquired with mock seriousness, “Was it a bar room brawl or a cat fight?” The words had barely died on the air when I started to keel over laughing. I laughed so hard, tears streamed down my face. No amount of indignant outrage on the part of my co-worker could stop it.

As we drove back to work, I determined that perhaps I should ban myself from going out with them for a while. Whether it is my inability to muster the correct amount of disapproval for people’s personal sexual predilections that require seeking our services, to my status as bleeding heart A-1, I don’t think I am fit for out of office socializing. I don’t think I get it. At this point, I am not sure I want to.

Nanner Sockgate

2009-05-19T08:15:00.002-05:00

Ok. I have determined that the Socks from the Toe Up knit along on Ravelry hates me and I haven’t even finished my preliminary pair. It is not often that I decide my knitting hates me, but recently I have had a crap run of luck. The worst part is that it involves sock knitting – my sit down and get my head together knitting.

First, there was that whole Leyburn disaster that I will not mention. Then there is the Simple
Sock heel that I have not been able to turn. Simple Sock number one is fine, fits great. Now I am at the halfway point of Simple Sock number two and just not having a good time of it. Added to that the Nanner Sockgate and I am just about to scream.

After the whole Leyburn drama, I decided to do the preliminary pair for the Socks from the To Up Knit Along on Ravelry.

It all started with a simple enough sounding book Socks from the Toe Up by Wendy Johnson of Wendy Knits fame. I got the book as I am always on the prowl for new ideas for knitting socks. I was not disappointed and liked about 90 – 95% of the socks in the book. My usual is around 50%. So, as motivation for both diminishing my stash and knitting the patterns in the book, I joined the knit along on Ravelry.

As practice for some of the techniques in the book, I downloaded the free pattern Nanner Socks and started knitting. The pattern itself was pleasingly interesting. First, you begin with the toe. Once getting that bit of construction completed it was on to the fun part. On the instep you knit the constructed ribbed lace pattern with the sole being plain stockinette. Then I got to the heel. The heel was not a construction I was familiar with, so that made for more interesting knitting.

It was at this point in the project that my doubts sprung fully formed into my consciousness. The central theme was that of bias and the sock.

Brain: “Hmmm, the Eyeball twins are telling me that this sock is really skewed off center.” Me: “The Eyeballs aren’t the most reliable witnesses and I have the scars to prove it.”

Brain: “You know, perhaps it would be a good idea to put the sock on to make sure it is long enough before you start the leg.” Me: “That seems logical enough” Brain: devious, maniacal laughter

I put the sock on. First, it took quite a bit of futzing because the sock was in deed biasing strongly to the right (making it about the only thing in my house that does), but I wasn’t about to tell Brain that, not that I am very good at hiding things from Brain. Brain seems to have this uncanny ability to always know what is going on.

What was more alarming, however, was the fact the sock heel protruded like some Frankensteinian growth from the side of my foot. Stupid Brain and Eyeballs. Let’s just say that the phrase, “to the ball winder with you” is becoming more frequent in my house.

I am now trying the Waterfall sock pattern. We shall see.

The bad juju has been knit into the yarn because my first attempt was a bit large. At least I decided to test it just above the toe shaping, so I was able to correct the problem. Then there was the whole I-memorized-the-pattern-for-the-larger-size drama that also needed to be corrected.

Now if I can just get my positive sock knitting juju back, I'll be happy. How long should I wait before I perform a sockercism?

Star Trek Redux

2009-05-12T08:25:00.001-05:00

Hubby and I went to see Star Trek before taking his mom out for Mother’s Day dinner.

I am not the Trek fan Hubby is. I enjoy some things Trek, but find most of it a bit on the ridiculous side. Although this is heresy to some, I could never get into Shatner’s Kirk. He just seemed a bit lacking intellectually and too disco and chains for a serious studly man. Hubby, on the other hand, has watched all the series, good, bad and awful. He has been known to complain about how he didn’t like a particular series while watching the reruns for the umpteenth time, taking away valuable Law and Order: Criminal Intent watching time.

So, as we settled in our seats in front of the giant IMAX screen, I was ready for a 2 hour overdose of nerdy sci-fi. Since the Sci-Fi channel’s offerings for the day was the Children of the Corn saga, which even I, lover of B-movies that I am, could not knit to, I was glad for the opportunity to see some righteous sci-fi.

I expected several things from the film. I expected the theatre to be filled with people who spend more time in their parents’ basement in front of their computer screen than with other humans – check. I expected to see a lot of people that looked like the comic book guy on the Simpsons – check. I expected to see a lot of fan t-shirts – check. I expected decent effects, not the little model on fishing line, -- check.

What I did not expect was a movie of such awesome sci-finess that I delighted in its awsomeness, and it was awesome (Watch Kung-Fu Panda and it will make sense.) What I did not expect was that I would cry in the opening sequence of the movie. What I did not expect was to see some knitted garments that made me want to ask the projector operator to still frame the movie so I could get a good look and perhaps copy the look on my own.

Perhaps most surprising was the fact that after seeing the movie, I have been thinking a great deal on myth.

Myths are more than stories, they are a way of transmitting values, goals, and ideals. Stories that embrace myth endure. Like Star Trek, people were truly surprised that J K Rowling’s Harry Potter saga gripped the imaginations of so many children. The reason: both have embraced myth and touched something primal.

In Star Trek it is the belief, hope, dream that all sentient beings can live together in peace, that science and knowledge defeat fear, and that our humanness – in all its illogical messiness - is our greatest strength.

In times such as these, we need our best myths. Why? Because in a time when the pundits in their divorced from reality habitat tell us that the economy is improving and our experience is that the neighbors on either side of us have been laid off, myths keep us from despair. Because in a time when we as a nation are divided about things such as the legality of torture, same sex marriage, and how to keep ourselves safe, myths give us common ground to walk on together. Perhaps, most importantly, myths remind us of what is important about who we are as a people.

The Leyburn Offensive or Boobs on a Wire

2009-05-11T08:18:00.002-05:00

The Leyburn Conundrum was resolved. In a fit of insanity resulting from pique and over thought, Leyburn II’s reign ended last week. I kind of mourned its passing, but decided that after all Leyburn II put me through I would get over it.

So after calculations worthy of deploying a space shuttle mission, the co-regnum of Leyburn III and Leyburn IV began. Because knitting one sock on 5 double pointed needles did not prove challenging enough, I decided that I should knit two at one time on two circular needles.

Knitting two socks at a time has the following advantages: 1. both socks match; 2. you don’t fall into the pit of second sock syndrome; and 3. it provides a great excuse for drinking mass quantities of alcohol.

I have not used this method of sock knitting previously. Because I knit wicked fast on double pointed needles and have knit so may socks I can knit them in the dark, I have not seen a reason to change - not that I have dabbled in the sock knitting dark arts. I have knit a pair or two magic loop style (using one, mile long circular needle twisted into a loop. If you were wondering a circular needle is one long needle with a needle bit at both ends and a long flexible bit in the middle.), but other than that I keep to what I know. (This is why serial murdered eventually get caught.) I generally keep good notes and have an overdeveloped knitting pattern memory. Still, when Leyburn II was rendered to a limp pile of unraveled knitting a bit of doubt niggled my mind. It was the thought that I am not that good and the pattern knows it.

So I cast-on with two circular needles. The beginning has foreshadowed this project. After reading several techniques, I ignored them all. I cast-on one sock and then knit the first round. Then I cast-on sock two and knit the first round. It was at this point I realized I made a tactical error and was so lost in the maze of needles and thread, that unlike Theseus, I would never find my way out of the maze.

Memo to self – there is a reason why they tell you to cast-on both socks before you knit anything.

Humbled, I ripped out and started over, this time casting-on both socks before moving on. I started knitting, but more slowly. While, for me, knitting with double points is akin to driving down the Pacific Coast Highway in a Maserati, knitting with two circulars is more akin to driving a Citroën 2CV with a bad clutch.

Added to this is the fact one must always be vigilant lest one inadvertently forget to change yarn between socks, only to realize that one has been knitting both socks with the same ball of yarn for the past twenty rows. Yeah!

Of course, it isn’t enough that I had to jazz up the sock knitting by using two circular needles. Because I didn’t like how open the stitches were on the size 2 needles, I had also decided to use a slightly smaller (0.25 mm smaller to be exact) knitting needle. What I had not counted on was the smaller needle with a different technique might possibly render a dramatically smaller sock.

Since the U2 concerts of ’87 and ’89 and Don Henley ’89 I have sacrificed a portion of brain cells that do math. I am not admitting anything other than to say the concert venues were quite smoky. So, an hour or so later after enough calculations to launch a hamster through end zone uprights with a rubber band, a broomstick and a coat hanger from the 50 yard line, I started knitting again.

Hopefully, I will make it to the heel and the halfway mark this weekend, because right now it looks as if the circular needles have sprouted boobs and much comment from the one man peanut gallery. If not, I will go quietly when the little, white van appears.

The Leyburn Conundrum

2009-05-07T07:00:00.001-05:00

In the long ago, before Battlestar Galatica appeared its last on the SciFi channel, I started knitting a pair of Leyburn socks. I had seen what the Harlot had done (scroll to 01-21-09) and decided I would knit them, too.

I read the pattern. I got some appropriate yarn. I did a bunch of math. I made extensive calculations. I cast-on. I knit. I tried on the sock. I thought it fit. I knit some more. Life happened. The sock waited. Then I decided to finish them. I knit some more. I tried on the sock to determine where best to put the heel. The sock was huge. I refused to accept it, leaving the sock in the basket for a day. I picked it up again. Still huge. I ripped it out. Such is the sad, terrible saga of Leyburn I of the Kingdom of Random Sock Knit Along.

The reign of Leyburn II began the later that evening. After a rough start where Leyburn II’s advisor criticized his logic and appearance, things went well. Then there was the incident of the heel and the whole, loose floats of doom issue. So, Leyburn II has fallen ill and may not survive a trip to the frog pond.

I am generally a relaxed knitter, so to compensate, I tend to use a smaller needle. Because I have knit with practically every weight of sock yarn known to humankind, I can determine how a pattern will work with the yarn and if I need to make any further adjustment beyond needle size to the pattern.

Then I encounter a pattern like the Leyburn and I find myself driven a bit beyond distraction and speeding toward Looneyville.

The very design of the Leyburn that makes me want to knit the socks is the same design that has made me a bit bonko.

I have knit Fair Isle in my time. I am not a fan of Fair Isle. It doesn’t call to me the way lace and cables do.

For those of you unfamiliar with Fair Isle knitting, the briefest of tutorials. Fair Isle knitting is a technique whereby the knitter uses two or more different strands of yarns in different colors in the same row/round to create a multicolor design. To prevent holes from forming in the knitted garment, each strand of yarn is carried across the row. The yarn is then twisted together when changing from one color to the next. The little loops that form by the yarn that is not being used to knit the stitches are called floats. (For a more extensive description via Wikipedia: Fair Isle Knitting)

One of the reasons I am not a fan of Fair Isle is that stitch tension contributes only half to a beautiful result. The other half is the tension of the floats: Too loose and a hole forms every time you change colors; Too tight and the garment puckers unattractively every time you change colors.

In the Leyburn design, however, you create a float by stringing the yarn along in front of unknit stitches, but the basic principle is the same as in Fair Isle knitting with regard to lose and tight floats.

The pattern designed made a point of telling the fair knitter that because of the float design, the sock would be tighter than normal. Fair Knitter was glad to be advised of this because knitter fair has feet of Flintstone, thus necessitating calculations befitting a quantum physicist. So concentrated was Fair Knitter on not producing a second sock worthy of feet of four by sixes, that knitter fair forgot the Float Postulum 573, which states that relaxed knitters need worry less about floats too tight as floats loose and unruly.

So, I am working on the leg bit of Leyburn II and between the floats loose and unruly and the heel of ick, I am thinking of dispatching Leyburn II and trying for Leyburn III. The advocates of Leyburn II are quite vocal and convincing, but I fear they are quickly losing to the advocates of Leyburn III. Damn you knitting OCD!

Passive-Aggressive Terrorists

2009-05-06T07:00:00.000-05:00

Lately when talking to my mom, I have used the phrase, a bit sarcastically (moi, sarcastic, never!), “Well, you know, it’s all about me.” while meaning the complete opposite. I probably use this phrase more than I should, but I have been thinking about this concept a lot lately.

Nothing gives you quite the drama as a sick grandparent or two. All the kiddies come out to misbehave, leaving the adults in the dust at once confused and pissed-off. Having more than a passing acquaintance with Southern culture, I am all for people being as eccentric as they want to be, however, there is a difference between tie dying your underwear and wearing it over you clothes and being a passive-aggressive terrorist.

The passive-aggressive terrorist could give the Taliban a few pointers, and from the situation in the Swat Valley, I am not so sure they haven’t. First, you agree to things. Then as soon as the decision is made, you exercise several options. Option 1 – Pretend that none of it happened, so when you get to the next step you can be in control because you are the victim who is being left out. Option 2 – Agree to everything and then do exactly the opposite, while claiming that you are in fact doing everything that was agreed. Option 3 – Refuse to do anything. Refuse to talk to anyone. Take all your little toys and go home. Option 4 – Go on the attack. Option 5 – Act as if everyone else is stupid and knows nothing while at the same time playing the victim of everyone else’s stupidity. Option 6 – When all else fails, throw yourself in the floor and throw yourself a good old tantrum.

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the whole situation is that the passive-aggressive terrorists have the power they have because no one wants to confront them, because unlike the passive-aggressive terrorists, some of us realize that isn’t always about us and that others have feelings, valid viewpoints, and rights, too. Why do we realize that? Because we have learned to act like adults.

In my experience there are basically two ways to deal with the Passive-Agressive Terrorist . One, is to treat a 5 year old in a grown-up’s body the same way a teenager would deal with them: tell them that they can join the game when they are older and more mature, and then ignore them until they do. Better yet, treat them like adults and perhaps they will start behaving as adults. Either way, things won’t change until someone looks them straight in the eye and says, “I call bull shit on thee, and I am not going to tolerate it any more.”

It’s All Peyton Place

2009-05-05T09:14:00.000-05:00

Of late, I have been struggling because I have felt myself censoring my own writing. I have wrestled with it for several weeks now, and realized as I ripped out Leyburn I (it is an entire sordid story in and of itself), that the people I think might be offended are the same people who act with impunity towards the rest of us. So, fair is fair.

In the movie, Return to Peyton Place, Allison comes back to the hamlet of Peyton Place to face the fall out from her novel. In so doing, she confronts a truism about writers. The same people who are narcissistic enough to want you to put them in your novel, short story, essay or blog are the same people who screech the loudest when they don’t like what they read and then refuse to believe it isn’t about them, because of course they are the earth of Ptolemy’s universe.

A blog can be different from a novel because, in a novel it is easier to call b.s. on thee when the whole “I hate what you wrote about me” issue surfaces. The other reality is that if people you write about don’t read the blog, valor and humor pulls the pant off discretion, leaving discretion to run screaming down the street pantless and embarrassed. Yet, what I find most humorous is that the same people who think the blog kills when they think I am writing about someone else, also think I have the most sarcastic, biting humor when they think I am writing about them.

As I have gotten older, I have come to understand that too many people don’t mature. Sure, they get bigger, but for the most part, they are 6-foot tall five year olds. The same people who tried to hold their parents hostage with a tantrum to end all tantrums is generally the same ass who holds the family hostage until they get their way.

That is why, long after all trace of Anna Nicole Smith is deleted from the archives of tabloid hell, she will live immortal as a precedent setting SCOTUS decision. If my 80 year old father married a much younger woman who could smother him with her bosoms, I would be so disgusted and skeeved out, but I would manage. I would not, after he died and left her a mountain of cash, want it proven in a court of law that they actually consummated anything. It is enough to blind my mind’s eye. Well, Anna Nicole Smith’s son-in-law let the 12 year old inside himself who didn’t get the right color pony win out over being an adult. It only took SCOTUS to get it through his pig head.

Mea Culpa, Knitting

2009-04-29T07:00:00.000-05:00

Dear Knitting,

I admit it. I have been cheating on you with the really cool drop spindle I bought at the Fiber Event in Greencastle.

I am sorry that I used it so much during the first week that I had it that I have some repetitive stress pain.

I am sorry I blamed you for it, but I was working on that sock when I felt it and was forced to take the ibuprophen.

I am sorry I bought the cool bag for the drop spindle and fiber. I loved the water color effect on the fabric and it was handmade. I just couldn’t pass it up. I know I should have bought it for you, but you have so many little project bags I didn’t think you would mind. It was wrong of me, I know.

I did buy you that lovely skein of Briar Rose. I also got you that OOAK from FiberOptic.

I promise I will make it up to you. There is always Wool Gathering in the fall.

The Curse of Greencastle

2009-04-28T07:00:00.000-05:00

Two years ago I made the ill-fated trip to Greencastle, Indiana to attend the Fiber Event. I generally have the love for fiber festivals as you can find independent dye artists’ yarns, things you don’t see at your local yarn shop, and all things spinnerly. My first trip to Greencastle I nearly froze to death and had to employ all my good humor and sense of adventure to survive. I was so traumatized by this trip that I did not go last year.

So, this year, I was determined to have a good time. I invited my mom because she needed a break from all the current family drama. We were going to meet some of my knit friends at the event.

First clue it was not going to turn out as I had hoped was that the Fiber Event fell over Easter weekend.

Second clue it was not going to turn out as I had hoped was that there was no good way to get there from here – here being Louisville.

Third clue it was not going to turn out as I had hoped was that I forgot to put the Indiana map in the rental car.

My mom and I got up early and headed out. It was a gorgeous day, I had loaded up the iPod with my Diana Krall cd’s (I haven’t put my entire cd library on my iPod, yet, but that is a whole other post), I had water, I had given my mom a fiber festival kit, and the weather was phenomenal without a hint of snow, sleet, rain, hail, freezing rain, or frogs.

I had printed out the Google Map instructions for several different ways of getting to Greencastle. We decided to go through Bloomington as we weren’t in a hurry and the weather was good.

We got to Bloomington without a problem, until we tried to access the local Starbucks. I am all for restricting access to the main drag from the little strip malls every block. What I am not for is having to be psychic and know that there is a Starbucks at the far end of the strip mall a block away and that I need to turn NOW to be able to get there. That was the beginning of the end of the trip.

We got back on the road and followed the directions. I was driving along and got this sense that something wasn’t quite right, had looked at the odometer and determined how many more miles I would go before I called someone to find out just where in the hell we were. My mom, however, had arrived at freak out point much sooner because we didn’t have an Indiana map and she couldn’t follow along on it.

It is true in rural America that not much attention is paid to signage or to accurate signage. Directions tend to be more by a combination of landmarks and historical, yet, now invisible landmarks. Roads are called by the colloquial name and those bastards at Google Maps have yet to see fit to ensure their directions are locally, instead of globally eye in the sky, accurate.

After a call to Hubby and enduring a series of smug insinuations that I a. didn’t know how to type in the from and to directions accurately; b. had chosen the dumbest way to get where I was going; and c. interrogations as to why the Indiana map was in the car with him and not in the rental car with me and my mom, we got things straightened out and back on the road.

Incidental Aside: Smug Hubby went home and Google Mapped it for himself and came up with the same directions. I made him admit it after hearing his sheepish voice on the other end of the line later that evening.

We got to the Fiber Event without additional incident. I bought my Briar Rose straight away because I was not going to see a colorway I loved only to have it bought by someone else in the “thinking about it phase.” I also bought a drop spindle and a small amount of fiber to spin.

We had dinner with my knit friends at the scene of the cobbler scramble two years ago. We had a great time.

The hotel was okay. It met my expectations, which was good, because with some chains you never know. At least there were no bed bugs, no mold in the shower and things were clean.

Breakfast was not as pleasant. First they had Fox News on the television in the dining area. I think I heard the word socialist or some variation there of about 100 times in five minutes. Worse still were the two geezers pontificating about the horror of it all. They expressed horror and disgust at the suggestion the United States might possibly become like continental Europe. I felt like saying, “Yeah, I really don’t want to be like those poor bastards in Europe. I want to pay out a week’s pay each month in health insurance. Free university is for dilettantes. Public transportation is for hobos. Please, for the love of the saints and all that is holy, spare me all the old, hairy fat guys in speedos and women with nipage pointing due south at the beach."

What’s Your Stripper Name?

2009-04-24T10:30:00.001-05:00

My first inkling as to how cruel a month April was to be came early. As many of you know, I celebrated a milestone birthday in January. My best friend from childhood celebrated the same milestone, albeit with class and flair.

I, on the other hand, just wanted to fly like Superman with fist outstretched to the sky, fast enough to turn the world backwards a day or two. Barring that, I wanted to spend about a week in a drunken stupor until I could get used to the idea. I did neither, but option two held a certain appeal as neither of my parents are from the planet Krypton and the only power the yellow sun above ever gave me was the power to burn a brilliant red and blister.

I decided to knit something special for my friend for her birthday. It took a while to pick out the yarn and then the pattern. Once I got the pattern, it took three different swatches to determine what combination of yarn, needle and lace would be the best.

As I knit on the project, I thought about the fact that my friend is a lot that I am not. She is tall, beautiful and possesses the grace of a genteel Southern woman. My friend has a good job, is married to a successful husband, has two great children, and lives in the same small town where we met so very long ago. The project itself did not progress well. I am still knitting on it and hope to get it finished soon.

To celebrate her birthday, my friend asked several of her friends out to dinner at a unique restaurant in Louisville. I sat at the dinner table with people I didn’t know feeling incredibly out of place. I work with some of the poorest, disenfranchised people in society. A lot of what I see each day calls into question how we get the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the perfect lawns, and all the other tasks performed by invisible people that makes life in the US what it is for the rest of us. Yet, here I sat with people who lived where they were born, in a small town with the invisible ugliness of free school lunchers and the other vagaries of urban life hiding in plain sight. Part of me burned with envy at my inability to choose that life long, long ago.

Mainly I wished that I had stories that could be told in polite company, but when most of your time is spent talking about sex, avoiding pregnancy, STI’s and how to get baby formula, it just isn’t possible. The same stories that kill with amazing frequency at knit night die on the tongue around this table.

I struggle to think of something banal and lose. At this point all I can think to do is to play that wonderful party game “What’s Your Stripper Name?”

There are various ways to play, but my favorite is to pair your first pet’s name with the street you lived on as a child. My stripper name is BB Glendale. One of the guys’ stripper name was Blackie Longview. We had one Lucky Something and a Fluffy Something else. It was at this point during the game that it occurred to me that my mother-in-law had often talked about their pet Trixie. So, I asked Hubby what street he lived on and said that his stripper name was Trixie Oak.

Hubby was all au contraire his stripper name was Sherman Oak, which he observed sounded more like a nursing home or grave yard. His mom had the dog, Trixie. Then Hubby got this strange look on his face and said, “My mom’s stripper name is Trixie Dixie.” You just can’t recover from that.

April Cruel

2009-04-23T21:17:00.001-05:00

"April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of dead land,
Mixing memory and desire…”
T S Eliot, The Wasteland

I used to believe that T S Eliot worked in a tax office. I worked in a tax office and truly believed that “cruelest” did not accurately describe April.

This is the second tax season of freedom for me. I don’t miss it. Part of me can’t believe I lived through six or seven of them.

Even so, April has still been cruel.

The month began with a bit more revelation about myself and the nature of friendships than I would have preferred. The Curse of Greencastle lives on, but at least I didn’t freeze to death or worry about catching pneumonia this year. I have been to the dentist practically every Monday this month. Now as the month speeds to a close, I am confronted with my grandmother’s impending death from cancer.

Most of all, April has been a time when I have struggled with what to write, how true to be. I am supremely aware of the need to be sensitive of the rights and feelings of others Still, when situations arise that keep me from writing because of those same fears, there is a problem.

So, what will follow over the next several contributions will be intensely personal and necessary for me to keep writing.

Out of Control and Craving a Moment

2009-04-19T21:59:00.000-05:00

The Rubicon has been silent not because I haven’t had anything word worthy, because I have. The Rubicon has been silent because things have been a bit out of control and I am on overload. Between work, school, family, and life, I have been a bit crazy.

Even worse, I am losing days and weeks of time without the luxury of a moment to mark its passing.

In other cultures, each day people take time to breathe. There is tea time in the UK; the espresso bar in Italy; coffee and croissants in France; and smoking of the herb in Amsterdam. These are daily rituals that keep life from getting too everything.

I think that we as Americans tend to see these breaks as a bit too self indulgent. What could be a more colossal waste of time than a cup of coffee or tea with nothing else – no crossword puzzle; no Sudoku; no book; no work; no knitting.

I have learned that it is during times like these one must rely on the sane counsel of others to keep perspective. I have learned that the practice of craft helps to keep one grounded. More importantly, I have learned that when things get out of control, sit down and watch the premiere of the new season of Law and Order: Criminal Intent. Nothing like a little Goren action unraveling someone’s life who is more screwed up than yours to put things in perspective. Yes, it will set you right.

11 Months Make a Year

2009-03-29T20:47:00.002-05:00

The perfect weather last week proved to be Spring’s latest tease. It was enough to entice the budding trees to blossom only to have Spring jump out from behind a bush screaming, “Ha! Ha! Just kidding!” The past few days the trees have provided the only color relief to all the gray and precipitation in all its liquid forms. I suppose I should be grateful that we did not have any solid precipitation, as that would have been too much.

My classmates have returned from Spring Break with tans and tales of prowess – real and imagined – of keg and bed. As they brag, I contemplate whether I will ever be able to eat any cured meat after two semesters of anatomy lab. I think I am going to miss prosciutto.

This is also the time of year when business picks up at the free clinic. I am pretty cynical. I have pretty much seen and heard it all. Yet, I am still surprised by the failure of the human brain to “get it”. When you go to get treatment for VD, remember why you are there and think about it. The same person who just gave you a shot of antibiotic the consistency of yogurt with a syringe with a needle the size of a garden hose is probably not interested in dating you.

In an attempt to keep me sane, the universe has rescinded my order of a personal event horizon. This past week the singularity gave up the skein for a second sock, three sets of knitting needles, a tape measure, and the part of my brain that keeps the sarcasm in check. In exchange, the black hole demanded my iPod sync cable, the entire month of March, my bite guard, and Billy Gillespie’s career.

I would not complain were it not for the fact I really like the month of March – St Patrick’s Day and all. I also need a year that has 12 months instead of 11. It is had enough getting everything done in 12 months. Taking one away is the utmost in cruelty, particularly since I have a very special project on the needles and I needed the month of March to get it finished. I must learn to live with disappointment. Sometimes it just takes more wine.

Beware the Insanity of March

2009-03-26T21:53:00.000-05:00

I am not a sports fan. I am not a bracket filler. I am not prone to risk my employment by a. pretending to be sick or b. streaming audio or video of a team’s efforts in my cube just to keep up with my bracket standings.

Since it is guaranteed that we will visit my parents at least once during March Madness, the NCAA basketball tournament is an opportunity for marathon knitting. I sit on the sofa, cast on a pair of socks, and knit the most complicated lace or cabled design to my heart’s content, as I don’t really pay much attention to the game and little else is going on at my parents’ house.

I am not one who gives a crap about this sort of thing. Or so I thought.

My sad story of obsession and insanity begins two plus years ago really, but I will start with January and the crap ball played by UK (University of Kentucky for the uninitiated).

I remember being told once by an Argentine that his Boca fan father would accept him announcing that he was gay before he would accept that his son was a fan of River. My dad would not say such a thing, but then again we knew it was not a good thing to cheer for University of Louisville or worse yet, DUKE.

My sister still goes into a tirade of outrage and fury over the unsportsmanlike conduct of Duke player Christian Laetner and the blatant placement of his foot forcefully and squarely in the chest of UK player Justin Timberlake. In the end Laetner got his. After being a college sports god, his career fizzled out in the pros, a has been before he was 30. Karma can be a bitch.

Generally, being a UK fan is quite satisfying. Not this season. For the first time in my recent memory, UK’s season was filled with such suckage (a 5 on the 5 Hoover scale of suckage) that we did not even get a chance to play in the NCAA tournament.

When I mentioned my discomfort about this fact to my father-in-law, who is a Gators fan, he said, and I quote, “The problem with UK is that they are living in the past.” He went on to say that UK had gotten cocky, believing that they were the only game in town.

You know, I am generally very respectful of my father-in-law. I don’t disparage his political or religious beliefs; I don’t recriminate him on the terrible habits he instilled in Hubby; I don’t throw up from car sickness when I ride in the back seat of his geezer mobile. Yet, I found myself wanting to say with emphatic conviction, “You can kiss my butt, old man and I hope the Gators get beaten by Morehead State” in response.

The worst part is the wrongness of it all. The words “there’s always the NIT” are not words any self respecting UK coach should utter – ever. Especially when even that is an invitation to failed hopes and crushed dreams as UK lost to Norte Dame in the quarterfinals. I didn’t watch the game. For that I am grateful.

Spring Break 2009

2009-03-19T22:11:00.001-05:00

OK. I am posting this. I started writing yesterday, but life is just not cooperating.
The thought of my usual standards have swirled down the porcelin bowl. Take it for what it is – a late post and when you read it know I am probably sitting looking out at a dark parking lot as the sky pours down rain. Also be aware that if you are easily offended, read no further. You have been warned.

I am looking out the window of my office. The sky is blue; the temperature somewhere well above freezing; a slight breeze ripples through the trees. I determine that Mother Nature hates me, as she should have planned this weather for last week when I could have enjoyed it more.

Last week was that ancient, pagan ritual to celebrate the vernal equinox known as Spring Break (Yeah! Partay On Dudes!).

Digression: No, I am not stupid. I know that the vernal equinox is the 22nd. If you think it is the 21st, ask my dad and he can quote chapter and verse. Unfortunately for the vernal equinox, daylight savings time comes early. (Think about it. Come on. College students, time change, body clock resetting. I knew you would get there.)

Spring Break, the pagan celebration of life, excess, and all those You Tube videos that will end so many political careers. I know that many people in the United States believe that we are a bit more spiritually evolved than that Druids, Celts, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and any other ancient culture. We tend to think that since we no longer kill goats, sheep and chickens that somehow we are better more enlightened. MTV’s coverage of Spring Break should disabuse us of that notion. The followers of Bacchus live and Dionysus has nothing on them.

I have also had a few Dionysian moments recently.

It all started when I took my Dumbledore sock in progress and myself to the Gaelic Storm concert. I went stagette as Hubby would rather comb his hair with razor wire than go to a concert with me. I like Gaelic Storm, the price was right and I hadn’t been to a concert in a long while. Well, the band takes the stage. I am sitting knitting my sock, drinking a Smithwick when it occurs to me that I have not been in the presence of so many good looking men in super tight jeans in a loooooonnnngggg time. It further occurs to me that I am appreciating the view perhaps more than I should and that I should care about that – but I don’t.

Then I started reading one of the books in the Highlander series by Karen Marie Moning. Let’s just say (avert your eyes if you are easily offended) that any book that uses the words cock, balls, and luscious by page 30 is only going to get more explicit by page 31, and by page 100 the book should be ready to spontaneously combust.

Creepy aside: said book is not so nearly as interesting when your mom reads a random excerpt and downright nausea provoking. Must remember to hide said books from her in future like in high school.

So, now I just have to find a way to find my anatomy and physiology textbook as interesting. Maybe if I put the cover art from the Highlander book on my textbook I can fool myself. On second thought, it has a rather explicit chapter on STD’s. Sobering.

We're Alive at Rancho del Rubicon

2009-03-02T22:13:00.000-05:00

We are not dead here at Rancho del Rubicon. We have wished we were. We have wished that we lived alone in a cave so that we could stop being infected with the cold virus that refuses to die and gleefully keeps mutating. Believe me, getting well only to deal with man sickness is enough to make you bat crap crazy, especially when you aren’t sleeping because your own mucus membranes have conspired against you as three in the morning is the best time to ramp up snot production.

To heighten the misery, we have endured deep freeze temperatures, followed by a perfect spring day only to be frozen again the next day. So, you can’t figure out if you have a fever and are chilling and sweating, or just need to turn the heat off.

Work has been kind of busy, too. One of my recommendations has become policy. That is good. Means more work for me, which means I have job security. At the same time knowing that the number of people seeking services from one program that provides milk and food for pregnant women and children has increased from roughly 6,000 a month to 10,000 a month makes my heart ache. It also makes my blood boil that people can so blithely talk about doing nothing, which is the same as letting the economy collapse. The only thing I can figure is that they are arrogant enough to believe that they would be unaffected by the ensuing economic implosion. Then again, people say a lot of things until the fallout sucks the cash out of their bank account.

Added to this Johnny Fun Time is the whole going to school and studying science thing because I enjoy having a cold and feeling like an idiot all at the same time.

I have found some time for knitting, if only to preserve my sense of humor – sanity ran screaming out of the building several weeks ago. I finished a pair of plain socks for hubby for Valentine’s Day. I would have gotten another pair finished had it not been for the fact that labels lie and my ability to embrace knitting denial is legend. Let’s just say that stitches per inch plus yarn weight is a highly subjective method of giving information about how a yarn will knit up. If anyone mentions the s-word (for you non-knitters that is swatch – as in a small bit of knitting to see if you get the Joe Isuzu results) I will say this, I don’t swatch for socks.

I have not finished the second mutant genitals sock. I kind of cast-on for it, but didn’t get the stitches distributed on the needles or start knitting it.

I scored some Opal yarn in the Harry Potter series in the Dumbledore colorway. I thought about getting the Harry colorway to knit some socks for Hubby as he read all the books. Let’s just say that German men must be a bit more secure in their masculinity as I do not see Hubby wearing socks with hot pink streaks and a not quite navy blue. The Dumbledore colorway doesn’t conjure up lumberjacks, either – unless they are of the Monty Python variety. Anyway, I am knitting a pair for myself.

The Leyburn socks are languishing in the knitting basket. They require too much thinking. I have a German foot that hasn’t seen a size 7 since I was 6. Let’s just say that I when I tell someone that I am angry enough to shove my foot up their butt they know two things – 1. it will take the jaws of life to remove it and 2. they really don’t want to find out if statement 1 is true. So, when a sock pattern is written for a women’s size 7 medium, I have to do some crazy math if it has any kind of pattern so the sock will fit my size 10 Flintstone special. Given that the same brain cells required to do all the calculations for my size sock are also needed to do chemistry, well… let’s just say that the knitting loses out.

Cabin Fever Part 3

2009-01-29T22:58:00.000-05:00

Day three of being snowed in. My captor has gone to his clubhouse to be with his other nerd friends. Apparently, two days working from home away from the nerd hive weakens his nerd powers. I will be free to determine how to escape for chem class and lab as he will not return until after 5 p.m.

I am not complaining. I am able to sit and watch t.v. on the big t.v. while I knit. This is a huge improvement from trying to watch something on my laptop and not breathing too loudly in the process. Last night I had a pain in my shoulder from the tight grip on the needles and the tension. Maybe it is just the knitting. I will conduct an experiment and publish the results.

Later…. Much later this evening. I have determined that a man with a big truck driving in snow and ice is like a man with a big penis – he is deluded into thinking that size compensates for a lack of technique and skill, while at the same time acting like men who’s attributes are smaller should step aside for the big boys and that women should swoon. Let’s just say it is so satisfying watching them slide into a giant ditch.

I made it to chem and chem lab. We got to work with radioactive stuff. Stuff that emits gamma rays. Maybe people shouldn’t mess with me because I might turn into The Hulk.

The trees are beautiful encased in ice. Beautiful and deadly. People are without power. We have been lucky. We have power, heat, and food. So, we can entertain ourselves, stay warm and not be hungry. This is much more than many people in our city tonight. For this I am thankful.

I finished a pair of socks, but it looks like I won’t get my pair finished until this weekend. I am kind of bummed, but I will survive. I will get them finished.

Cabin Fever Part 2

2009-01-28T13:06:00.001-05:00

Day two of my captivity.

I am awakened to the blaring television which is competing with the clock radio that my captor did not see fit to turn off when he got out of bed this morning. I struggle to find the remote and turn off the radio so I can see how long I can expect to endure this hell. The Prophets of the Glowing box seem to take joy in the fact that I will be held hostage again today and perhaps tomorrow. Their minions stand, impervious to the cold and snow, delighting in being called to testify. I switch the channel to some innocuous cooking show and pull the covers over my head. It will be another long day.

I take a shower and get ready to face the day. Breakfast, some knitting, then studying. As I prepare my instant oatmeal, (gross observational aside… how something that cooks up like library paste can shoot through the colon, even one incredibly log jammed, is one of the great mysteries of the universe.) I hear the question, “What are you making me for breakfast?” I turn and say, “Instant oatmeal. Get a pack, and a bowl, add the water and I will put it in the microwave.” Captor scowls and walks away. I had thought about using my cool, new, silicone egg poachers, however, since I was not planning on being stranded at home for an extended period of time, I only bought a half loaf of whole wheat bread (captor only eats white bread food product) and I need that for my tuna sandwich, not toast to go with a breakfast of poached eggs and black tea.

I am compulsively looking out the window to discover if it has stopped snowing, thereby improving my chance of being rescued. My hope gutters like a candle in a draft as I realize that we will not see temperatures above freezing for three more days. I can only pray that it stops snowing, or wintry mixing before all is lost.

At least we have enough food in the pantry and refrigerator to see us through, although my captor may be less than pleased after a few days of black beans and rice after everything else is gone. If he thinks about a Doner Party re-enactment, I am prepared with a bat.

The only thing that has taken the sting out of my captivity has been Netflix on-demand, my laptop, headphones and my yarn stash. As long as I have electricity and yarn, I think I will survive.

Cabin Fever

2009-01-27T22:13:00.000-05:00

It snowed last night and this morning. It is snowing tonight with the added bonus of sleet and freezing rain. I did not have classes at university today as they were cancelled and I did not go to Tuesday night knitting. Hubby chose to work from home and then did have his class this evening.

I wish I could say we stayed all warm and cozy, enjoying each other’s company while the blizzard raged outside. I wish I could say that the smell of homemade chili and chicken vegetable soup made me think we were staying in a ski lodge. No. When Hubby works from home it is not all that relaxing.

I get that work must be done. What I don’t get is how all t.v. that I might enjoy watching is considered impossible and distracting, while three hours of Junkyard Wars reruns helps the working process. Any question must be asked at a convenient time. This despite the free flow of jabber while I am trying to watch something I like on my laptop with headphones on, so as not to disturb his work flow. At one point I seriously contemplated whether I would be asked to stop knitting and breathing as it was disturbing to the work process.

I might be more sympathetic were it not for all the reading of sci-fi novels, music, t.v. and other activities done while working. I might be more sympathetic if he had gone to the apartment office to pick up my Rockin’ Sock Club 2009 shipment. I might be more sympathetic if I could have gotten my chemistry studying finished before being driven insane by the constant questions and comments from the front room.

I also have two pairs of socks to finish before Friday so I can start knitting my Battlestar Galatica socks. Besides, I want to wear my Silky Dan socks for my birthday. It is hard to knit while studying with someone who keeps repeating rather loudly, “I can’t work like this!” when you turn the page of your textbook.

Now there is the better than average possibility that I will not be able to go in to work tomorrow due to the weather. Hubby has already decided that he is going to work from home. I am more than tempted to fake it. I will pack my stuff and find a coffee shop with internet access and take over a small corner to study, write and knit in peace so I can concentrate on what I am doing. There is a reason I didn’t get my first degree in something that required more than Rocks for Jocks or Biology for Poets.

The Big 4-0 is Coming To Town

2009-01-24T22:12:00.000-05:00

I admit it. I could be the fourth witch in MacBeth. I could fill in for one of the Furies. I could give Nemesis a run for her money. I could probably even make Charles Manson cry. All of this because I hit the big 4-0 next weekend.

I hate to even admit it, because it is admitting that I have been indoctrinated by Hollywood and advertisers to realize that my life is now a horrible downward spiral to Depends, Metamucil, Detrol, Fixodent, and calling Hubby’s doctor to get him some Cialis so we can lounge in separate bathtubs overlooking the Grand Canyon holding hands. (Observational aside… am I the only one who has noticed that there are no water connections for the tubs? So, if your man doesn’t die from a heart attack carrying enough water to fill two tubs, he will probably be too tired.)

What’s worse is having that distinctly Madame Defarge feeling when I pick up my needles. So far my list includes, Microsoft, Baywatch, Cheerleaders, Creators of the joy stick for the PS2, HBO for not having continual episodes of Trublood, USA and SciFi Networks (they know why), the inventor of Botox, and plastic surgery.

I probably wouldn’t be so crazy except I go to university twice a week. Each time I go, I want to just stand up and yell “Thank the lord for Darwinian evolution and can we please stop making rules that keep it from working.” Thus I would be spared the 10 minute legal opinion of one student as to what constitutes proper eye protection in chemistry lab because said student does not want to look like a dork. I had forgotten that the cool kids don’t like it when the nerds point out that wearing protective eye goggles only makes you look like a dork temporarily while a chemistry experiment gone wrong can make you look like a dork permanently.

She should just be thankful that I did not say the following: Newsflash sweetie…Dorks rule the world. We invented the iPod, computers, digital televisions, cell phones and gaming. We even invented birth control, although that experiment has not worked out so well. Turns out the people who need to use it the most seem the least capable of figuring out how it works and their fertility rates seem to indicate they do not necessitate actual coitus to procreate.

These and other similar thoughts have plagued me as I have entered that time of life when you are officially an adult and anyone under the age of 30 pisses you off.

I have also entered that time of life when you begin to see fairy tales in a completely different light. No wonder Mr. McGregor hated Peter Rabbit. He was tired of the little bastard running through his garden, pooping between the rows, messing up his plants and eating his vegetables. That Witch from Hansel and Gretel was fed up with people just letting their kids run wild in the woods, eating her house. How were they ever going to learn you just don’t go to some stranger’s house and start eating it, even if it is made from gingerbread and candy?

So as I enter my 40th year, it seems that I will probably be that lady all the kids are afraid of. Were I 39, it would probably bother me. Now that I am turning 40, I say they probably won’t fear me enough. Now let me get my long cigarette holder and my Cruella DeVille Dalmation fur coat and go terrorize some toddlers.

This is the Month of My Discontent

2009-01-12T17:36:00.000-05:00

I appreciate irony probably more than most. Like most creatives I have to work for a living. I have noticed that work provides one for an overabundance of irony. What work generally does not do is provide one with irony so perfect, so spectacular that one begins to wonder if perhaps the irony train has slipped the track.

I have been very careful not to speak often of the politics of The Rubicon. I will admit to having borne the last 8 years with less grace than I should but more grace than deserved. Every time I saw our illustrious leader on a trip to Europe, I cringed inside. I nearly went blind watching what may be loosely referred to as dancing.

So, when I opened my e-mail at work this morning, it took all of my control not to spew coffee all over my computer screen. The HR manager had sent out an e-mail detailing policy changes to the Americans with Disabilities Act enacted by the current occupant. Apparently confusion, difficulty communicating, concentrating, thinking, and reading are now included in the list of disabilities covered by the ADA.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe all of those things to be disabilities given the right circumstances. The thing is as an ex-occupant, you should have no trouble earning a living even with your disabilities. Most of the exes have done pretty well, so hedging your bets is bad form.

In other news…. It seem the return of the Elvira ‘do (I would say coif, but that would be like trying to dress up the bearded lady. You can put he in Dior, but all people will talk about is the beard.) has returned from the dead. I am just waiting for the day I see it paired with leggings.

I would not be so bitter except I went shopping for pants. For some reason known only to Satan and his minions of darkness, leggings are marketed to women of a certain roundness and fullness. Let me be clear, if you have more curves than Kate Moss and are not in either Aerosmith or the Rolling Stones, leggings is not the look for you. In short, I don’t need a pair of pants that hugs the cellulite in my ass so closely that it looks like I am trying the new cottage cheese lotion for cellulite control.

All of this has inspired me to knit a pair of socks for myself from Panda Silk. When the world makes you crazy grab some brilliant pink silk and knit.I am calling them Silky Dan. Those of you with a familiarity with Naked Lunch can guess what they look like and why the name.

Post New Year Hangover Rubicon Rant

2009-01-05T20:01:00.000-05:00

I am sitting at my local Starbucks realizing I have just become the person I hate. You know that person. It is the person who doesn’t have to be at work and makes a request for an item not on display – in this case the discount card – that requires a bit of investigation on the part of the cashier while the line of people trying to get their Monday morning java fix for work plot thousands of painful deaths for you. I am mortified. Still it doesn’t suck the joy out of my triple venti soy latte and butter croissant like hearing Isaac Hayes singing Shaft before 9 a.m. does. At least the annoying barista, hasn’t started singing along.

As one of my resolutions for the year is to express more gratitude, I am grateful that I have arrived at January 5th without causing anyone severe bodily or psychic harm despite grave provocation to the contrary.

I had all these wonderful intensions of how I would begin the year. I would be a different person and learn not to indulge the sarcastic and out there part of myself so freely. I would be mellow. I would let people have their idiotsyncrasies without comment. I would not feel the need to point out when I had been pushed beyond all human endurance. This intension burst into flames and evaporated into smoke and sulfur on January 1st around 4 p.m.

It occurs to me that people who make crazy New Year’s resolutions regarding their eating habits should not be allowed to shop alone. Furthermore, people who make resolutions to drink the milk of only certain breeds of goats or only drink that cat poop coffee should not be allowed out of doors on January 1st when the rest of us are trying to cope with hangovers and an empty fridge – not that I had an alcohol induced hangover, but I sympathize with those who did. Additionally, said people should not be allowed to interrogate the beleaguered grocery staff person who is probably hungover and looked to be stoned as to the veracity of the organic labeling and does it mean just organic or are the goats free range on aforementioned goat milk and if said goat milk is from the same goats that they make mozzarella with while preventing 7 others of us from accessing any of the other milk products with no hope of ever being able to put that gallon of 1%, organic cows’ milk into our cart leading to a severe calcium deficiency to the point that our bones turn to brittle dust right there in the dairy section only because we trust that organic means organic and truly don’t give a damn if the milk is from a Jersey, Guernsey, Holstein, Bastard cow, or a combination there of.

Although I am grateful to discover that people appreciate it when one of the group being held hostage by the goat milk fascists (GMF) takes it upon themselves to inform the GMF that they can’t taste the difference between organic and non-organic goat milk, that perhaps they should write down the brand names of the goat milk, GO HOME and do some internet research so that the rest of us can, please for the love of god and all that is holy, liberate the poor, organic cows’ milk and allow it to be free range in our home refrigerators instead of being held hostage by someone who doesn’t realize that true Mozzarella comes from water buffalo and that goat milk is used to make feta and chevre, and that the crunching sound that they hear is our backs breaking as we have developed a severe case of osteoporosis while standing here while someone has been wasting our time torturing some poor bastard who never once thought that today would be the day she would have to verify the provenance of the goat milk sold in the grocery store and that we would appreciate it if they would move their cart to the side so that we could get on with our lives.

I probably would not have been in such a craptastic mood if it had not been for the fact that the lady’s boyfriend – I am only surmising those two were together. I am Darwinian that way. - hadn’t also decided that he needed more fiber in his diet and doubled up at breakfast, causing the rocket moving through his colon to arrive at countdown to blast off at the precise moment I am in the bathroom recycling a litre of water and three cups of coffee. (No, I am not giving up caffeine this year. I have my limits.)

Apparently, ingesting mass quantities of fiber make it physically impossible for one to read the sign above the handle that says in capital red letters, OCCUPIED. Apparently, ingesting mass quantities of fiber make it physically impossible for one to hear a woman screaming “occupied, occupado, someone is in here!” Apparently, ingesting mass quantities of fiber imbue one with near super human strength, leaving my modesty and dignity guarded only by the structural integrity of the doorknob. The fact that it held made me praise German engineering as I have found no American engineered and installed doorknob that would have withstood Gorillaman.

What a way to begin the New Year. I will admit, though, that once one has so thoroughly and supremely blasted through their primary resolution for the year before the first day is even over, leaving poor little resolution shredded and pathetic on the page, it kind of takes the pressure off.

The first two projects I finished in 2009 were fabulous. One was the man’s gaiter from Knitter’s and showcased on the cover of their pattern compilation for men that I knit for my dad. The other was the first pair of legwarmers for my dad. They fit and look good, which is probably better than I deserve after the way I greeted the New Year. Spurred on by such good fortune, I am knitting myself a pair of silk socks. Perhaps the little luxury will keep me in a better mood. Until then, I will follow the example of the Anonymous Zen Diva and wear my iPod while shopping.

Out on a Day Pass from Hell

2008-12-29T14:25:00.002-05:00

Hubby is at work. I am at home – alone. I am not sad. We will be eating dinner at home from Trader Joe’s bounty, just the two of us – alone. I am not heartbroken. We will then sit and watch our favorite t.v. shows sitting on our dual La-z-Boy recliner sofa – alone. I promise not to cry.

Oh, the holidays…. A time when one gets the privilege to spend time with family. A time when one gets to spend quality time with people forced to sleep in guest bedrooms on foreign beds, following a foreign schedule and eating foreign food. A time when one gets to eat ancestral cuisine of one’s in-laws. All of this done in the name of love and familial expectations. It would be more accurate to call it bondage most foul. No one is at their best after a couple of nights of poor sleep and having to be on one’s best behavior for hours on end, mindful that small children don’t really need to understand everything in the adult world like having a bat crap crazy boss who would be better emloyed as a dominatrix, or learn a new vocabulary particular to stress and peevishness – and this is those of us who got to leave, go home, have a snack and sleep in our own little beds.

In just such an environment I began one of my dad’s Christmas presents, having given up hope of finishing the two pairs of socks I needed to have done for hubby’s mom and sister-in-law. They will just have to get them in celebration of Martin Luther King Day or Inauguration Day.

My dad having received all the hats and socks he wanted and requested a pair of leg warmers for Christmas this year. Let me assure you that most legwarmer patterns aren’t designed for someone with only one X chromosome who wore red, white and blue vertical striped bell bottoms the first time they were in style. So after puzzling over it for a couple of days, I had roughed out a design.

I got the yarn, cast-on and started knitting. Things were going rather smoothly until I realized that I had not thought through the details that give a project that tailored look. I did cut myself some slack as my sanity was tested by hearing “Angels We Have Heard on High” played on machine gun setting after having been played on pipe organ, electric guitar, drums, and some other yet identified setting on this year’s gift that kept on sharing the joy – an electronic keyboard in the hands of an 8 year old.

I digress. This would not have been such a painful realization had I not proved my knitting MOJO (it was mad knitting magic skills, not just the puny re-twisting a cable 10 rows back without ripping back the project skills.) Let’s just say I am prepared to knit two pair of legwarmers at this point – the first the prototypes and the second the slick, improved version. (I will post pictures of both efforts after the New Year complete with instructions.) As the project is in worsted weight yarn, it isn’t taking me long.

Greeting from Christmas Knitting Command Center

2008-12-27T22:29:00.001-05:00

“Your call is very important to us. Please stay on the line and our next representative will be with your shortly. Under no circumstances set your knitting on fire. It only means you will have more knitting to do tomorrow. Christmas is on the 25th. You won’t have time to re-knit. (Annoying hold music most certainly to include “The Girl from Ipanema”.)

This is how I have felt lately. Between end of term, wrapping up the year end at work, the cold and stopped up nose that will not go away, and Christmas knitting, I have been a bit stressed.

So, in the world of humanity in either the camp of the planners or the not planners, I am firmly in the planner camp. As I am a planner, I had a plan. The plan was to go to the little cabin in Hocking Hills and emerge triumphant, Christmas knitting finished and wrapped. The plan was to enjoy the hot tub under the stars – clothing optional. The plan was to spend a day in Columbus with a small foray to a yarn store. The plan was to have a nice romantic lunch at a local restaurant.

There is this often ignored downside to being a planner, which is the Fates laugh in the face of all human plans.

We arrive at the cabin barely able to speak to one another because the pre-trip argument had morphed into the trip argument. After a dinner of soup and sourdough bread, we got into the hot tub in hopes that it would improve our mood.

Shared suffering is a couple building exercise. Hot tubbing is fun. Sitting and soaking in hot water is a wonderful way to relax. Sitting soaking in hot water, while a bone chilling wind blows from the North freezing one’s hair into solid ice is not so fun. This is not to mention what freezing cold does to one’s wet appendages.

I did get to visit a great yarn store in Columbus. I got a couple of really cool things. Then there was the entire bad car battery incident that led to trip angst as Captain Gloom and Doom allowed his imagination to run wild. We had lunch at a so-so restaurant and not a cool local place due to the bad car battery incident. We got back to the cabin and sat to soak in the hot tub in freezing rain.

This is not to mention the fact that I knit on Christmas socks until my hands cramped and I thought my pushing finger would get a hole in it to the bone due to the sharpness of my bamboo needles.

By Christmas Eve, I had realized that I was two pair of socks down and was probably not going to make it. By Christmas Eve, I realized that one pair of socks that I had knit was going to require a good bit of reworking. I am a good knitter. I can fix just about anything, but let me tell, I don’t need to prove it. I especially don’t need to prove it on Christmas Eve. I especially don’t need to prove how good I am by picking out the cast-on edge of the shorter sock and then knitting it up to the right length. I especially don’t need to make the fix only to fall victim to my own sense of symmetry by having to pick out the cast-on edge of the other sock just to bind it off so it will look like it’s mate. If the South can live with miscegenation, so should I.

I do have pictures to post. I do have more stories. I also have Christmas Knitting Phase Two. More to come.

Christmas Knitting at the Rubicon

2008-12-18T07:00:00.000-05:00

‘Twas the week before Christmas and all on t.v.
Were the crappiest programs you ever did see.
I sat with my knitting wrapped up in a chair
Working on presents with speed and with care.
When what should my wondering eye should appear
My Christmas knitting list. Crap! There went my cheer.
Only fifteen pair of socks in every dimension,
A scarf, some mittens. With seven days to go, I am still in contention.

Unlike my counter part the Harlot, I am not so organized as to have a schedule. I prefer to knit through the pre-Christmas season armed only with a list and my wits. I consider Christmas knitting the triathlon of knitting events. Why you might ask?

Christmas knitting is the triathlon of knitting events because it is an endurance sport with three phases. The first phase is determining who is knit worthy and who is not. This can be difficult because everyone believes they are knit worthy. Alas, nothing could be more untrue. More about that in a different post.

The second phase is matching the knit worthy with the project best suited for them. This phase tend to be most fraught with angst. Pay attention because what follows is some hard won Rubicon Wisdom….. There is no knit gift equity, so stop trying to decide if a shawl equals a pair of socks. I could go into the whole, “Well, if the projects all require the same yardage then you will have shown your Christmas love equally.” While this may be true to fellow knitters, the uninitiated don’t really get that socks can have the same yardage as a scarf or a small shawl, and thus, theoretically, require the same time to knit them. I credit the knit gift perception of disparity with same ability to twist all normal rules of logic as the whole that project knit in any other color or yarn will cease to be the project in the picture, and, therefore, I will not knit it in any other color or yarn phenomenon.

The third phase is where many a good natured and well intentioned knitter dies on the course. I am reminded of the Ironman competition I saw. The competitors were on the last phase – the marathon. One of the competitors, after swimming and biking through lovely Hawaii, threw up right there on the road as he was running. Yeah! ‘Cause it’s not a real competition until somebody pukes or collapses. I digress. Instead of throwing up, knitters become prone to all night knitting jags fueled equally by caffeine and alcohol, only to fall apart in the car on the way to the gift exchange and maiming themselves with a knitting needle to provide some explanation as to why some one is getting ¾ of a pair of socks this year.

My plan is to game the system by taking my knitting to the mandatory staff meeting and then taking a short vacation before Christmas. I will let you know how that works out for me. I am afraid that the hot tub may beckon like the sirens of old and I will fall prey to its charms.

Crime and Punishment Rubicon Style

2008-12-13T22:45:00.000-05:00

I have thought for quite some time about the trampling death of the worker at the Walmart in Long Island, New York.

First of all, I find it incredible that so many people hate spending time with their families so much, that it is preferable to campout for hours on end, in the cold, in front of a Walmart and then trample another human being to death while rushing like crazed animals into the store.

In the aftermath, there has been a cry to criminally prosecute the individuals. I say nay. Criminal prosecution will do little to humanize the victim or make the perpetrators understand the true consequences of their actions.

Instead, I propose the following:

The individuals involved should have to spend Christmas with the victim’s family. They should have to try to sit down and eat Christmas turkey and ham across from the people they have wronged for the sake of a cheap t.v.

The individuals should have to bring Christmas gifts with them for the family. They should have to try to figure out what you get for the family who has lost a loved one so they could get a cheap t.v.

Most importantly, the individuals should have to support the victim’s family economically. The man had taken a job so that his family could have a roof, food, and a chance at Christmas gifts under the tree. Those needs don’t go away because they felt compelled to run like maniacs to be the first one to put their hands on a cheap t.v.

And woe to any knitters in the crazed mob….

May moths find your stash and render it a tangled, mangled mess.

May your knitting needles break and bend.

May your projects hide a flaw until the bind off – and not just any flaw, but a mind bending, look like crap no chance of wearing it flaw.

I would think of more, but I am afraid of the knitting mojo as there will probably be other knitters adding to my list.

Things I am Thankful For

2008-12-13T22:41:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know this is late, but some of the items wouldn’t be on the list if I hadn’t waited.

I am thankful….

1. That Hubby and I both have jobs with security that provide us with a roof, food, gas for the car, yarn, books, and cable t.v. with some to spare.

2. For family and friends. They are the only ones who can consistently make you criminally insane and yet you love them anyway. Probably because they are the only ones who can tolerate you when you have gone criminally insane.

3. That I am ahead on the Christmas knitting so far.

4. That I am not the one who put the salad and vegetables on the garage floor as a holding area for the great trunk packing.

5. That I am not the one who then ran them over with the car because they were quickly forgotten.

6. That I did not laugh when aforementioned event occurred, but was instead sensitive and understanding. This is not my normal modus operandi.

7. That I have been finishing a lot of Christmas knitting.

8. That we were able to cram 30 plus people into a 900 square foot house with one bathroom so people could visit my grandmother, who is in end stage cancer, for Thanksgiving.

9. That not all 30 plus people showed up at exactly the same time.

10. That my grandmother got to be queen for a day and see the majority of her family.

11. That my grandmother taught my aunts and mom to be such good cooks.

12. That my cousin was interested enough in knitting that she wanted to learn in the chaos that is 30 plus people in a 900 square foot house.

13. That Hubby is a relatively good sport and was willing to be one of the 30 plus people in the loud, laughing, storytelling, crazy chaos that is my family at the holidays.

14. That my family was able to celebrate with abundance when much of the world survives on that much food for a couple of months.

15. That I feel guilty and humbled by 13 and continue to pray for economic justice so everyone can have food in abundance.

16. That my list of Christmas knitting projects keeps getting shorter.

17. That a certain individual was triumphant in a certain election.

18. That Starbucks invented the Espresso Truffle

19. That the Christmas knitting is on target.

20. That I have most of the Christmas shopping done.

21. That people actually read The Knitting Rubicon.

An Open Letter to the President Elect

2008-11-17T09:52:00.000-05:00

Dear Mr Obama:

Congratulations on your new job. Sorry about the longest job interview in recent memory, but that’s the way things go sometimes.

I know you have been getting lots of advice by the experts in the news media, political pundits, colleagues, and loved ones. I am sure that these people mean well and I would like to think they have your best interest in mind. Still, they aren’t your employer, 355,299,999 other Americans and I hold that title. So I feel that I have the right to a couple of minutes of your time.

If I may be so bold, I would like to make a suggestion that will help you solve the economic crisis, end dependence on foreign oil, and win the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. My suggestion is to include lots of Knitters and Fiberistas in your administration.

Before you dismiss me as one of those wackos on par with the flat earthers, Sasquatch hunters, and Bermuda Triangle escapees, please hear me out.

Knitters and Fiberistas have unique abilities and insights not common in your run of the mill advisors. Now pick yourself up off the floor, wipe those tears from your eyes and stop your laughing. You didn’t get where you are today by not believing the improbable.

What is mere economic theory to most Americans is everyday reality to our community.

Knitters and Fiberistas can help with economic policy because we are greatly affected by the fluctuation in the value of the dollar. You see, many of us like to knit socks with German and Canadian yarns. Quite frankly, since the value of the dollar has been swirling the toilet bowl, it has made me quite angry because it has caused me not to be able to get the sock yarn I need at the prices I can afford. I am not alone.

The Fiberistas among us are having difficulty affording one of the more popular spinning wheels on the market because it is made in Canada. Since the value of the Canadian dollar is now relatively equal to that of the US dollar, fewer can afford to spin their own yarn.

We also understand about supply and demand. There only has to be a rumor of Wollemeise availability to create a cybertraffic surge to a web vendor. Until you have sat at knit night and heard strategies for procuring this Holy Grail of the knitting universe, you truly do not understand the law of scarcity in economic theory.

When it comes to ending our reliance on foreign oil, we are an overlooked community . Knitters and Fiberistas can tackle this issue at every level from supply to demand.

The Fiberistas among us spin wool into yarn. To achieve this amazing feat requires a spinning wheel. The same energy generated to twist the wool into yarn can also generate electricity. Using a minimal amount of effort and ingenuity, every spinning wheel could be modified to include a small generator that could be plugged into the electric grid. Every time we sat at our wheels to spin, we would be able to send some electricity to the grid. I have no doubt that we could generate enough electricity to supply a small town with all of its needs.

To help reduce demand, we would outlaw those flimsy socks people buy at the Mega Lo Mart and replace them with hand knit, wool socks. Once the public at large realized how warm and snuggly wool socks are, they would start demanding other hand-knit, wool products. Since these products keep you warmer than most other materials, people wouldn’t need so much heating and fuel oil in the winter to keep themselves warm.

A number of these wool garment converts would realize instead of buying the finished item, they could make them. Staying at home in the evenings would become the norm, meaning fewer nighttime outings requiring less gasoline for automobiles. As a side benefit, it would reduce green house gases and help reduce global warming. A further side benefit would be employment of more writers as people would start demanding television networks have better programming instead of the latest installment of “My boyfriend slept around, so now I am too so I can get back at him” or “Our family is so dysfunctional we want to swap some of our family members with some equally dysfunctional family.” or, my favorite, “Survivor: Diarrhea Island”.

Now for the toughie – ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The reason these wars have gone on for so long is because we didn’t understand the nature of the conflicts. Each of these countries has large numbers of people of different ethic origins, religious beliefs, and political beliefs who have difficulty staying in the same room with each other, much less being able to talk to each other long enough to all row in the same direction.

Knitters and Fiberistas know this. In any given knit night group there are different political and religious beliefs, the straight vs. circular argument, natural vs. synthetic (and if you think those camps aren’t as divided as the Sunni Shiite debate, you haven’t been around Knitters and Fiberistas).

What we need is to mobilize knitting volunteers to start knit nights in every neighborhood, village and city in both countries.

Aside: As a bonus, we will throw in the capture of Osama Bin-Laden for free. Anyone who has ever been to a knit night knows that it is the best intelligence gathering venue. People talk at knit night because the people there listen. I am sure Bin-Laden is a crappy boss who offers crap pay, crap vacation, and crap health and dental. There is bound to be some disgruntled employee willing to talk without needing to use water-boarding, sleep deprivation, or naked man pyramids. Hey, we will even train some “interrogators” for free. They have to bring the wine and snacks. We will supply the yarn and needles.

It might sound dangerous to give people with generations held enmity pointed sticks and string and put them in a room together, but it is the only way. Sharing the struggle of learning to knit a cabled sweater can aid the healing. Once people realize that they can share common ground over knitting, they can transfer that knowledge to other aspects of their lives and culture.

Lest you think this is simplistic, the truth is that shared struggle is the only thing that works to see your enemy as your ally and as a human being who wants the best for their children, too.

Come to think of it, having the pilot project here might not be a bad idea. Perhaps it will help us to think of each other, regardless of race, ethnicity, creed, religion, political philosophy, sexual orientation, education, urban, rural, age, or gender, as real Americans who love their children and want to leave them a country that values freedom from want, oppression, and pessimism with freedom of expression, religion, and opportunity.

I know that smile on your face. It is the same smile I get when I am thinking the person standing before me is so naïve about how the world works. I am not naïve.

The truth is, Knitters and Fiberistas understand hope. Only someone with hope would buy 1000 yards of string and believe that with effort it can become a shawl of such aching beauty and delicacy it can pass through a wedding band, yet keep the wearer warm. Only those with hope would sit down with someone who says they aren’t good with their hands and transform them into a knitter or a spinner. Hope is what takes a mountain of fleece and spins it into yarn to clothe friends and family. Hope is believing some small action repeated over and over, thousands of times can make something beautiful and strong that will last for generations, like an heirloom shawl or sweater.

You see, Mr. Obama, while you have proclaimed a message of hope, our community has lived it. We stand ready to share our hope with anyone over two sticks, some string, or a bag of fleece.

What to Expect After the Election

2008-11-10T08:39:00.002-05:00

Every four years Americans engage in a masochistic process known as presidential elections. A woman can get pregnant and celebrate the first birthday of her child before all the fun and festivities are over. Meanwhile her other children can learn from all the political ads on television how to call each other douche bags without really using the verbiage “douche bag”. To further complicate matters, her spouse can find out that not everyone in the family agrees with his or her choice of candidate and / or political party, get called a douche bag – for real - by crazy Uncle Herman, and hung up on by mother-in-law when he or she tells her that perhaps Bill O’Reilly is not such an accurate source of unbiased information. All I can say is I am thankful that I am not this person.

I have decided that presidential elections are a lot like some knitting projects. You get all excited picking out the yarn and the pattern. They seem to go well together. You love the yarn and dream of actually wearing the garment on your date with Aaron Eckhardt or that dude from The Mentalist. He will so fall madly in love with you because of how great the garment is that he takes you away to Fiji and you lie around on the beach all day drinking rum punch and knitting. I digress.

Then you start knitting. Things go well for awhile, but then you find out that the pattern has a couple of errata that is confirmed by checking the website three days after you have thought yourself insane and incapable of reading a knitting pattern. The yarn you loved in the skein really doesn’t seem so exciting and wonderful as you finish the back and contemplate that there are a front and two sleeves left to go.

One night while sitting, watching True Blood, and knitting, your spouse asks what you are working on. After explaining it, aforementioned spouse only says “If you say so.”

Become convinced that complete project is utter crap and you can’t believe that you thought it was a good idea to do this in the first place.

Begin to notice that your friends at knit night no longer respond to your requests for an honest opinion about the project. Begin to notice that several have stopped coming all together after previous week’s heated discussion of whether or not both sleeves were the same length. Realize that people have now started talking religion and politics the moment you hold up your project for scrutiny.

While finishing the project, begin to have doubts about trip to Fiji. Fantasize about making offering to the goddess Pelé instead. Worry that magma is not hot enough to incinerate project.

Wear project out to dinner. Panic when someone asks you whether or not you made said project yourself as cannot figure out if they are being friendly, a fellow knitter, or some random wiseass who thinks its their job to be snarky to strangers. Say project was gift from mother as will elicit sympathy if said person thinks you look pathetic or admiration if person thinks project looks good.

Wear finished project to knit night. Defend choice of yarn, pattern and size. Go home tell spouse that you hate said project as did not live up to expectations, like everything else in life. Do not answer when spouse asks you if statement includes him. Throw self sobbing onto bed because you can’t believe you thought that the knitting fates would toy with you by promising you perfection only delivering much short of that.

No, we knitters are just little old ladies with sticks and string who would know nothing about election color commentary.

Does Rancho del Rubicon Have an Adult in Residence

2008-10-14T08:47:00.000-05:00

Well, the mood at Rancho del Rubicon has been a little cranky. Midterms will do that to a person – that and a hubby who is suffering from back pain who refuses to go to the doctor, make an appointment for acupuncture, or a massage. Then again, when you click on a website for a massage, the theme music is “The House of the Rising Sun”, and said establishment is open until 11 p.m., you probably don’t want him phoning that one.

As a result, I have spent a lot of time in the bedroom studying, reading and hiding out. From the front room, I hear hubby groaning and moaning. I am hoping he will stop complaining since I am no longer responding empathetically because he won’t seek medical attention. I am also hoping that he will go to work in Cube Farm McNerdo instead of working from home like he did last week on my off day, completely messing with my routine and draining my mojo. I have determined it is bad when I would rather look at dissected corpses, study tissue samples, and generally get my science geek on to block out the pitiful sounds coming from the front room. Then again, Halloween is just around the corner. I could record them and scare the neighbor kids.

Since changing my course of study from social work to nursing I have made several discoveries. One: now when I watch Bones I know what they are talking about and can name the structure. Two: Taking an exam in social work is much different from taking an exam in a science course. Three: There is not enough Ginkgo Biloba, Aricept, or other memory enhancing drugs in the world to help me remember all the bones of the body and their multiple structures. Four: I cannot knit during class or lab. Five: Nutrition is really scary, especially after they teach you how to really read a label and how the stuff on the label affects the body. Six: I really didn’t need to know what makes armpit sweat stink. Seven: I really didn’t need to know what makes farts smell. Eight: I most certainly didn’t need to know that taking a shower after anatomy lab may or may not remove the smell of formalin from your hair.

I have been knitting on the Lady February Sweater. I am knitting the Mountain Colors Twizzle in Alpine I got to make a Clapotis into this sweater. Sometimes the yarn knows best. This particular yarn did not want to be a Clapotis, not even after I tried to make it – twice. The Lady February is beautiful in this yarn. I am going to have to LoJack this project when I take it to knit-night. It has inspired not a little project envy. The other issue with working on this wonderful project is that it is taking knitting time away from Christmas Knitting.

For me the official Christmas season has started. My brother is coming in from Phoenix and as is our tradition, we have Christmas when people are together. We may or may not have the tree up. We may or may not have turkey. We do have lots of cooking of favorites of the guests from out of town. With my brother I am sure there will be some cheese cake and cornbread, probably some ham.

So, I have to make sure I have his stuff knitted and ready to give. The problem is that I am so enthralled with the sweater that it makes all other knitting seem boring by comparison. This is so odd because the Lady February Sweater is not all that interesting. The pattern is just four rows – two are purl the wrong side. There are a million stitches as it is knit in one piece. Yet, I find myself wanting to cheat on the Christmas Knitting and work on that.

This is most unfortunate because this year the Christmas Knitting is not the usual Sock Knitting Bataan Death March to Hell. I have knit some socks along during the year, not enough for everyone, but a few pair. I have some non-sock items I am knitting to break it up: a shrug from Tracy Uhlman’s book; an Adama’s shawl out of some luscious silk from Blackberry Ridge; and some mitts.

At the same time I have allowed myself to become distracted in my knitting, I have also allowed myself a bit of reading distraction. When I probably should have been studying all the structures of the skin, I was instead reading a delightful book The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry. It is a memoir of a woman fulfilling her dream to attend Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. She gets the opportunity after being laid off from her job. I enjoyed the book so much that I found it hard to put down. I had to be a stern taskmistress with myself and meet studying goals before I let myself read the book.

Then again, I know that the brain sometimes needs a break from all the serious stuff of job, life, and school to restore and regroup. Just like the knitting mojo needs something to restore the joy and excitement of knitting. In the days ahead, I am going to need it because Christmas Knitting will become a competitive sport of Iron Man Triathlon status and my studies will continue to role toward final, comprehensive exams before the social marathon of the Christmas season. Here’s to hoping that Rancho del Rubicon doesn’t cross over from cranky to bitchy in the near future.

It’s Alive!

2008-09-30T09:02:00.000-05:00

I decided around 8 p.m. yesterday during the NCIS two-fer while knitting on a shrug that I might actually live. This is opposed to Saturday and Sunday when a quick death seemed preferable to drowning slowly in my own snot. Not a dignified way to die, let me assure you. Being found suffocated by your own snot and lying under a mountain of used tissues is second only to being found dead and half eaten by your own cats in humiliating death tableaux.

As with all colds, there is little to do except sleep, drink plenty of fluids, keep the Vick’s company in business, and wait. The common cold is nature’s way of telling humans that despite all of our medical advances, the wee virus is still in control. Should we mock viruses too loudly, they have the ultimate revenge in the ever euphemistic stomach flu. Never has one phrase so inadequately described one’s suffering as “stomach flu”.

What I hate the most about this type of illness is that it zaps my desire to do anything but lie in bed and contemplate how much longer I think I have to live. I long for a cold that makes me sick enough not to feel guilty about not studying or not working, but not quite sick enough to keep me from reading or knitting.

Even worse, this bout with a cold has prevented me from getting someone to try on the Lady February sweater I have been knitting to make sure the arm holes are large enough. This project has been quite addictive. I love the yarn I am using – Mountain Colors Twizzle in the Alpine colorway. The pattern is clever and achieves that lovely balance between challenge and ease that makes a project addictive. This project has made me neglect the Pleiades socks, the Christmas knitting, my Adamas shawl, and the mystery projects. I have knit it in spite of the knowledge that I might have to rip it back to the arm pits. I have not cared. I have cared about infecting my knit friends with my cold.

Actually, it isn’t really my friends I have worried about, but the fact that a knit friend who infects the knitting group and all their children by proxy is considered lower than low. Such a person risks being pelted with stitch markers, having their balls of yarn unraveled, critical patterns shredded, and projects mysteriously ripped back and reknit incorrectly in such a way that it takes the knitter the better part of a month to get the project corrected. I am afraid of the power of the knitting group.

So tonight I will sit and knit alone on a Christmas gift. I will think of the knitting group and long to be there.

Madame Dufarge Lives

2008-09-23T08:00:00.000-05:00

Knitting is not for the timid. Many people believe that knitting is a quiet pursuit engaged in by elderly women with blue hair and no teeth. Au contrair mon cher. Knitting can be dangerous and deadly.

Imagine if you will, a knitter waiting quietly while knitting a pair of socks. The socks are Jaywalkers in Regia Stretch in blues. This is the third attempt on this pair of socks and pattern. The knitter is using Addi double points, with an emphasis on the points as German engineering is proud to take things to extremes. Added to the mix is that said knitter has recently been prescribed bifocals and is wearing her mono-vision contacts. Said mono-vision contacts have distorted the knitter’s depth perception, which is unreliable at the best of times.

When time for waiting is over, our dear knitter attempts to push the needles together as she has done hundreds of times when she puts her knitting away. Only this time, the combination of inaccurate depth perception plus pointy German needles equals impaled palm.

Our knitter sits stunned staring at the knitting needle protruding from her hand wondering whether to pull it out or leave it in until she gets to the hospital. In less than 10 seconds her mind does the whole, Crap there’s a knitting needle stuck in my hand; Do I pull it out; This is so gross; I think I am going to throw up; Great now it is really starting to hurt; OK I think maybe I should pull it out now; It’s a good thing it was just my hand and not my eyeball; I hope I don’t get blood on this fraking sock because then I’ll be really peeved, cycle.

So, how many wandering husbands have been done away with by their faithful wives who knit them all those socks? How many annoying neighbors have been pithed like frogs in their sleep? How many Ninja Knitters brigades have changed the course of history with one well placed needle just above the fifth rib?

We shall never know, because knitting has the reputation of being a tame pursuit. No, knitting does not stir the passions or cause one to think malicious thoughts. Knitting is just something quaint enjoyed by old ladies, spectacles riding low on their noses, knitting away at the shrouds of their enemies disguised as a lovely Shetland shawl.

Don't Fool With the Kitchen Goddess

2008-09-22T18:29:00.003-05:00

Sometimes a natural disaster is just a natural disaster. Sometimes a natural disaster is a sign from the Kitchen Goddess that perhaps you need to take action. A natural disaster that robs you of electricity for long enough to make it so you have to clean out the entire freezer and refrigerator, falls more under the sign from god category. It is a sign from the Kitchen Goddess that perhaps instead of growing the cure from cancer in the deep recesses of the chill chest, you are in fact growing weapons grade biohazards.

This theory is only confirmed, when upon cleaning out your fridge and dutifully recycling the containers that you come across something so horrible, so horrific, so vomit producing that you consider throwing up in the sink because the smell of puke would be preferrable to the toxic fumes emanating from an unidentifiable biomass. The fumes are so toxic that you hesitate to light a candle for fear of blowing up your apartment building.

It is precisely at this point that you realize that cleaning out the freezer to a man and cleaning out the freezer to a woman are two completely different processes. To a man, cleaning out the freezer means throwing everything in said freezer away and then filling one or more containers with water - not ice trays mind you, CONTAINERS - to increase the mass inside the freezer to keep the freezer from running constantly. Cleaning out the freezer apparently does not include wiping up the remains of defrosted ice cream and broccoli. No. That is an entirely different task.

You would at this point sit down to knit, only you are unable to think very clearly from the fumes and all. Besides, you don't want to risk your project absorbing any of the green cloud of death that is hovering in the kitchen and threatening to move into the family room.

You also determine that while you had thought about making granola and brownies tonight to put some pleasant smells about the house, you are afraid that they might become contaminated during the mixing up process.

Like a drunk, you then promise if the Kitchen Goddess will allow you to survive this kitchen cleaning without dying or major injury to organs or appendages that you will faithfully clean out the fridge once a week until the day you die of natural causes of some ripe old age. As said to Tom Cruise's character, Maverick, in Top Gun, "don't write checks your body can't cash". Perhaps I'll slide by just this once.

Hurricane Ike Clobbers Cincinnati

2008-09-22T07:25:00.002-05:00

Had you not been in Cincinnati a week ago, you might believe the title to be a bit of an exageration. Hurricanes do not travel this far inland. Au contraire mon cher. Hurricanes, apparently can and do travel this far inland, leaving in their wake a general feeling of being off kilter.

While Louisville, Northern Kentucky, Cincinnati and other unfortunate points did not get the buckets of rain and storm surge that has heaped misery on Galvaston, we did get the wind. As I write the word I find the word "wind" a little too mild, a litte too undescript for what actually happened. Air moving at greater than 50 miles per hour, bending massive trees like reeds, and ripping siding and shingles from their structures seems a little more than "wind".

A by-product of all this untamed energy left most of the Greater Cincinnati Region without electricity. Some people, when confronted with a power outage, find a flashlight and a book, retire to the bedroom and read to their little heart’s content. Other people, when confronted with a power outage, become so annoying that those of us reading with a flashlight think about using them as a human torch, were it not for the smell. Some people, when confronted with a power outage, are most annoyed that they allowed the person running around wringing their hands to convince them that buying one of those L.E.D. headlight thingies so they could knit or read in the dark to be one of those superfluous purchases of insanity that they left it on the shelf at Target. Some people, when confronted with a power outage and lack of one of those L.E.D. headlight thingies that they would have used to keep from going blind trying to knit in the dark, begin to lose their patience with Freakout Man and begin to wonder if at some point they might have to over power him and lock him in the bathroom just to regain some sanity. Some people, when confronted with a power outage, become exuberant at the thought of being able to use all their camping gear, particularly their little cook stove, that the power outage becomes more of an adventure than hardship.

During times such as these, you also discover that the fates have a cruel sense of humor. You may be able to go to your in-laws because they have power restored within a few hours, but no cable or internet. The fair knitter and reader is happy to have light for knitting and reading. Fair knitter and reader’s partner, however, adopts the look and mannerisms of someone detained in a Kafkaesque nightmare. Fair knitter and reader gives thanks that she will be able to have hot meals and, more importantly, hot showers. Fair knitter and reader’s partner determines that phoning the cable company and demanding service be restored to be a sensible thing to do when 500,000 people do not even have electricity to watch their televisions.

That fair knitter and reader’s partner survived without being pummeled with a bar of soap in a sock or drugged into compliance is a testament to fair knitter and reader’s self control.

Thankfully, fair knitter and reader’s power was restored by Tuesday. Thankfully, all those close and dear to fair knitter and reader suffered no bodily harm. That I consider to be a miracle. For that miracle I express continual gratitude and prayers for those who were not so lucky.

Poochus Maximus RIP

2008-09-09T11:00:00.000-05:00

Grief knitting is a poignant, obsessive process that can be quite alarming. After the event all you can think about is casting on a project and losing yourself in the process. One minute you can sit knitting and watching the premier of True Blood. The next minute, tears fall into the yarn and you pray it doesn't felt. I have not often had the need for grief knitting. I have been lucky that way and I appreciate that. Unfortunately, grief knitting doesn't have a schedule for when it starts. All you can do is find a fabulous pattern (Lady February) and some great yarn (Mountain Colors Twizzle in Alpine) and knit.

Saturday night, Hubby and I had to take The Sherm to the emergency vet and have her put down. She had been her usual self earlier in the day, performing her acrobatics to see if there was something tasty on the t.v. tray I use for my knitting staging area. Then she had a stroke or a seizure that evening that left her in such a condition that we had not choice about what to do. For this I am forever grateful.

At the risk of seeming completely insane about an animal, I will share a few things about Sherman.

We had several names for Sherman. One that we had started using after watching Rome on HBO was Poochus Maximus. I had created this whole backstory for the name. Sherman was with Julius Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon. Sherman's job was to lead the legion of dogs in subduing all the cats to Caesar's power. I described how she wore the leather armor typical of the Roman legion and the cliche helmet with the red bushy crest.

I also had several songs we sang together. Sherman was a black dog, so we did a lot of blues and Ray Charles together. Her favorite was Blackdog in a Whitedog World. She had ecletic tastes, so we also did some metal. She would sing Shermandog to the tune of Ironman. Actually I would sing and move her around as if she were singing.

Sherman was also the Phantom Farter. She was the source of all noxious smells in the house. At least that is what we have chosen to believe.

The first few days were the most difficult. I could not write or talk about it in any way that made sense to the deepest part of me. I could only knit. Sometimes that is all you can do. The working of the yarn helps you bind your heart together until you are whole again.

The Horror of Man Boobs and Jell-O

2008-09-02T07:30:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, I witness things so horrible, that I am afraid that I will be struck blind and stupid. Sometimes, I witness something so awful that it makes me wonder why the people responsible for it are still employed. I have wondered this a lot in the past eight or so years, but until today, it never occurred to me that I was a rank amateur because it never occurred to me that someone in the music industry thought it was a good idea to bring back New Kids On The Block, with the original members and then let them shoot a video with them in it. Then again, I thought that Supply Side Economics had been completely discredited under Reagan.

For those of you who are, blissfully, not conversant with the NKOTB, I will enlighten you.
It was the late 80’s. Madonna had just writhed on the scene. Frankie went to Hollywood and relaxed and didn’t do it, although he wanted to go to it. Duran Duran sang about women and snakes. MTV was new and only had 10 videos. Punk and New Wave were what all my friends listened to. Disco had been put out of its misery by The Clash. We were not afraid to admit we hated strobes and disco balls anymore.

In fashion, women wore suits with enough padding to make football players envious. Hairspray companies were the surge market on Wall Street, with every teenage girl who ever passed by a mall ratting up her hair, poofing out her bangs, and shellacking them into place with enough Aqua Net to create a chasm in the ozone layer.

On the opposite end of the spectrum were the preppies who felt secure enough in their coolness to wear pastel, Izod polo shirts with the collars turned up and did not fear being pummeled or having their manhood questioned.

We pretended highschool was like The Breakfast Club.

Reagan was in the White House talking tough and forgetting that perhaps stating that we had launched nuclear warheads was not the wisest course of action.

It was the golden age of boy bands. Latinos already knew about boy bands as they had been tortured by Menudo for several years. Luis Miguel and Ricky Martin both graduated from Menudo when their voices cracked and dropped a couple of notes. I digress. One of the first and biggest boy bands in the US was New Kids on the Block. Prepubescent girls and boys waited to see them with a frenzy not seen since the Beatles walked down the steps and onto the tarmac. The “novel” thing about boy bands was that they danced a little routine with each song. How lovely.

There is a certain truth about people approaching middle age who cling to the glories of highschool and teenaged success. This truth is that they are sad because none of the rest of their life has ever measured up to those years in their lives that most of the rest of us hated. There is another certain truth, there is nothing more pathetic than someone approaching middle age who tries to recapture teenaged glory.

What is truly horrifying is when an entire boy band is convinced they can turn the clock back 25 years and reclaim their former triumph. When your six pack has been replaced by a sack of Jell-O, it is probably not a good idea for you to do your own dancing. When it is hard to distinguish the man boobs from the woman boobs in your video, perhaps you should have edited that part out.

No, dear friends, you can’t turn back the clock. Fortunately, though, you can rip back your knitting to find the place where it all went wrong and try to start again. Too bad that can’t help The New Kids on the Block.

And Swarmed by Birds, Too

2008-09-01T07:30:00.000-05:00

My mom’s mother’s birthday gathering a couple of Saturdays ago was interesting. The trip started with my parents and I driving to Lexington, where I parked my car so ride the rest of the way down to Eastern Kentucky with them.

My grandmother is very ill and not handling her status well. While she is not physically capable of cooking for a huge crowd, it doesn’t mean that she doesn’t want to. Her children conspired to make it an impossibility for her birthday.

So, my grandmother sat in the giant recliner and complained that her children had forbidden her to a) no longer cross the two lane road to get the mail – this is the same road that coal trucks barrel down at break neck speed loaded or empty; this is the same road that my grandmother knew we children were dying to run out into just to be flattened like pancakes by one of the aforementioned coal trucks.

My grandmother sat in the giant recliner and complained that her children had forbidden her to b) walk down the steep steps to the basement, especially if she were home by herself.

My grandmother sat in the giant recliner and complained that her children had forbidden her to c) cook her own birthday dinner. What she did not say was that by forbidding her to cook her own birthday dinner, her children deprived her of the joy of calling all her friends to tell them that she cooked for 50 people for her birthday.

After going to the kitchen to see the progress of the dinner, Grandma sat beside me. I asked her about her boyfriend. She told me that they had broken up. After telling her how sorry I was, Grandma told me that it was because he was “serious”.

OK. This is one of those times when the stitches you are knitting become so very, very interesting. I sat there staring at how lovely, neat, and even my stockinette stitches were, while the little person in my brain ran around like a maniac screaming, “Don’t ask what she means by serious! It could mean he wanted to marry her, which is okay to know. It could also mean that he wanted sex. You don’t want that image in your mind. It will blind your mind’s eye for the foreseeable future.”

I sat there by Grandma. She had this smile and an expectant look on her face, the look that said, “Please ask me what I meant by serious.”

Instead I said, “Oh, will you look at that. I forgot a yarn over in this lace pattern. Better concentrate on ripping this back a row to fix it.” Desperate times call for more extreme measures than just making a yarn over from the slack between two stitches.

After her stent of complaining, my grandmother stated after I had commented that “Mr. McGoo has nothing on grandma”, that we did not believe how BLIND (!!!!) she was and how she couldn’t see to do anything. My response was, “Grandma, perhaps that is why they don’t think it is a good idea for you to cross the street to get the mail or try to go down to the basement by yourself. It is dangerous if you don’t see all that well.” Of course, she argued that she wasn’t that blind. Too late I realized I had been sucked in. I had deftly avoided the Sick Olympics only to be drawn into the Who Wants to be the Most Misunderstood. I am such the amateur. Thankfully, I was able to avoid Guiltpardoy, but just barely.

Then there was a bit of external drama. This all before dinner.

People could save some serious health insurance bills for diagnostic testing for irritable bowel just by coming to one of these gatherings. There is the high emotion of my grandmother being so ill and the knowledge that this might be her last birthday. Add a bit of conflict and a pinch of drama. If you don’t get a flare of IBS then you probably just need to do a better job of washing your hands, produce and avoiding cross contamination in your kitchen.

I rode back to Lexington with my parents, strung out with emotion and grateful that I would have the drive from Lex to Cincinnati to process all I had experienced.

When we pulled into the parking lot of the Crackle Barrel to get my car, we heard them. This flock of black birds calling and flapping as they settled into a nearby tree for the night. I don’t have a phobia about being flailed by birds, not even after seeing Hitchcock’s movie of good birds gone bad. Then again, a trauma induced while in a highly emotional state is ripe for inducing a phobia. I should learn to knit while driving.

Feasting on Gravel

2008-08-30T07:30:00.000-05:00

A couple of Fridays ago, I dropped Hubby off at work and drove to Louisville. My parents and I had big plans for the weekend. First we would spend some time Friday evening with my dad’s family. Then, on Saturday, we would head down to Eastern Kentucky to celebrate my mom’s mother’s birthday. I took the cursed scarf with me to work on so I could work on it in the car.

My dad grew up about an hour south of civilization, Louisville. The drive is scenic, if a little daunting as you play dodge semi down the I-65 corridor. We stopped at the fudge shop on the town square to buy my mom’s mother some fudge for her birthday. My dad got a little impatient because Mom and I forgot that outside of urban areas a retail transaction takes a bit longer because with the exchange of money is a whole catalogue of exchanged pleasantries. This is something you have to practice or you forget and can seem rude.

We all met at this little diner and sat down to eat. The menu was a cross between a steakhouse and Cracker Barrel. There were some good possibilities. I chose the country fried steak because it is one of my favorites and Hubby never wants to go anywhere that might possibly have that option on the menu. He is not the culinary bungee jumper I am. Anyway, I was a bit excited to be eating something local because I am a fan of Alton Brown.

I have especially loved Alton Brown’s Feasting on Asphalt series. One of the reasons that I love his series is that he talks about how we are losing part of our heritage because most interstate exits are a culinary carbon copy of the one before. Alton Brown toured the back roads stopping at little cafes and diners in small towns. We got to see him and the crew eating and loving the food every place they stopped.

We did not see them stopping and then wondering if the 400 mile motorcycle ride was worth it. Like painting, cooking can be an interpretive art. To do well at either you must learn the basics before moving on to the interpretation on a theme. Not everyone knows this. They should, but they don’t. Draw your own conclusions.

After dinner, which one of my uncles paid for – and I appreciate that and am thankful for it, we adjourned to my other uncle’s house for coffee. My dad went the “back way”, although the “back way” is practically indistinguishable from the “front way” with the exception that instead of being off the main two lane road when you go the “front way”, the “back way” requires taking a series of two lane roads of varying narrowness to turn on to the main two lane road.

I am thankful on a regular basis for two things: 1. That I generally always have some knitting with me and 2. caffeinated coffee. I can keep myself in check with those two things, unless I cross the line of just enough caffeine to too much caffeine. I was not going to become to caffeinated. Wouldn’t be prudent.

I pulled out the cursed scarf and started knitting. Everybody talked about the past because talking about the present might get a little real. I knit and knit. I drank a couple of cups of coffee. I behaved. No one was injured.

In the back seat of the geezermobile on the way back to Louisville, I sat wondering how things would play out at my mom’s mother’s birthday. I knew I would be crossing into the external drama zone. To survive you need some good knitting, a decent night’s sleep and no caffeine.

Embrace the Dysfunction

2008-08-29T08:30:00.000-05:00

There are two kinds of family drama, for want of better terminology I will call them external family drama and internal family drama. External family drama plays itself out in all its glory with spectacular displays of high emotion, and usually ends with someone running off or slammed doors.

Internal family drama plays itself when there are several major issues sitting invisibly to outsiders dead center on the table or living room floor. The drama results from each family member fixation on completely ignoring said unresolved issues and concentrating on not even hinting that they exist for the “good” of the family.

In my family, we have plenty of both. I will be honest and admit that I have wished, prayed, and hoped for and internal drama to go external just to relieve the pressure. On more than one occasion, I have considered poking it with a stick to get things started. Then again, I know the family code.

So I sit and I knit. While people may laugh about it when I do it at Hubby’s family reunion, they probably never thought that I knit at all family gatherings for pretty much the same reasons.

I knit to have something to occupy me and keep me from saying something completely funny but totally inappropriate after a display of external drama.

I knit to have something to focus on besides that giant spot of quicksand in the middle of the floor.

I knit so that I can embrace the dysfunction without having it get me in one of those awkward hugs from a guy you like but have no chemistry with and don’t want to break his heart, but don’t want him tongue kissing you either because you didn’t extract yourself quickly enough.

Fair is Fair

2008-08-28T08:34:00.002-05:00

I have been working on the cursed scarf to the exclusion of other projects. I just decided that I did not really care that the ball bands were some huge joke. I decided that when they said that all three balls were the same color and dye lot they meant it in an artistic way, kind of like Picasso and his painting Nude Woman in a Necklace.

As artistic as this yarn is, I do not want it hanging around in my stash giving other balls of yarn ideas about how to drive me crazy about expressing themselves artistically, as recently it would be only a drive halfway down the block because not everyone appreciates art the way I do.

As artistic as this yarn is, I do not want it hanging around in my stash giving other balls of yarn ideas about how to drive me crazy about expressing themselves artistically, as recently it would be only a drive halfway down the block because not everyone appreciates art the way I do.

Sometimes all you can do is embrace the dysfunction – whatever that may be. This works in knitting as well as relationships, especially family relationships. As much as I think that this particular scarf is cursed, it doesn’t mean that that I hate the scarf, nor does it mean I haven’t enjoyed working on the scarf. What it does mean is that this scarf requires a special kind of love.

Which leads me to the following observation, my relationship with this scarf is a lot like my relationship with my extended family. It makes life difficult as a writer sometimes because the desire to self-censor is great. While people love reading about the foibles and dysfunction of others, they rarely like to read the same about themselves. After thinking long and hard about this fact, I have decided fair is fair.

Of Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy

2008-08-21T09:57:00.000-05:00

Some of my friends believe that I am a knitting guru. Some of my friends believe that I am – as the Harlot calls them – a Knitter instead of a knitter. Some of my friends believe I am capable of interpreting even the most arcane of pattern instructions. Some of my friends believe that I can correct even the most dismally incorrectly knit garment with only my wits and fingers to guide me. If you are one of those friends, read no further as I do not want to disillusion you and destroy the last good and wonderful thing that keeps you sane in these dark and perilous times. For those of you willing to plunge ahead, make ready the smelling salts, sit down, and have coffee ready.

I am not a knitting guru (GASP). What I am is a knitter with an inordinate amount of knitting patience, obsessive perfectionism, and experience. This is the trifecta to knitting success. Nothing more and nothing less.

I used to not believe in the holy knitting trifecta. I used to believe that certain knitter genius was created in the womb by the fiber goddesses, imbuing the embryo with some fiber magic that allowed the human, once born and taught to knit, to create feats of knitting from air and fairy dust. I was completely and utterly wrong. I was completely and utterly disrespecting the skill that is knitting.

I am also a musician. When I play the piano, I do this with the knowledge that not everyone is capable of playing the piano. When I play the piano, I know that what I make sound easy and pleasant is really the result of hours of practice and patience, sometimes practicing a few bars for hours until I get the fingering, tempo and tone correct. When someone tells me how much they enjoyed a piece that I have played, I do not say, “It was nothing, just a small trifle. Anyone can do this. All they have to do is buy a book and play.”

While on some level it is true that learning to play the piano is mostly learning the mechanics and coordination, it is the experience and practice, the willingness to completely and totally be horrific even when you wish you were deaf to your own playing until you get the skill, that separates musicians from the inept. Knitting is not different.

To become a Knitter versus a knitter, one must be willing to produce sweaters for King Kong, socks for Godzilla, and shawls for Rodan.

To become a Knitter versus a knitter, one must be willing to rip out a disastrous few rows without compunction, pity or tears, as they will felt your wool.

To become a Knitter, one must be willing to be brutally honest with oneself about the viability of a project and remember that project euthanasia is not illegal, although some communities have laws about open bonfires.

To become a Knitter, one must accept that telling a friend that they should rip back a mistake instead of saying, “No one will notice that you have a giant hole over your boob” to spare a few tears and that look of pain in their eyes as you unravel the last three hours of their life in five minutes.

Being a Knitter takes hard work, commitment, and a willingness to persevere in the face of lying swatches. Most of all, being a Knitter requires constant vigilance and heartache. Being a Knitter means doing it until it is right, regardless if others will notice because you will know and it will eat at you every time you wear the garment.

So the next time I wear a shawl in public and someone says how great it is that I can wear something so beautiful and how they could probably do the same thing, I will not reach out and touch them firmly on the mouth with my hand as I say, “Only if you are willing to pay for it in time and tears.”

Mystery Knitting

2008-08-15T07:00:00.000-05:00

For a while now, I have known about mystery knit-a-longs (MKALs). I have had friends’ whose eyes just glazed over in ecstasy as they talked about the MKAL they were participating in. I never succumbed to the MKAL bug. I just wasn’t sure what all the hype was about. You get yarn for a project that you have no idea what it looks like to know if you will like it when you’re finished with it. You just have to trust in the mojo of the designer and hope their knitting Kung Fu is good.

One psychological theory is that people who share an experience develop a relationship with each other more quickly than the normal getting to know you process allows. The same theory has a correlative (see, I was paying attention in high school geometry with all those theories and correlatives) that says that people who endure shared hardship bond more quickly and closely because of the need to survive. I am beginning to doubt this after watching Lost and 10 minutes of Survivor: Diarrhea Island.

When reading the dialogue in the Ravelry groups for MKALs, I have gotten the distinct impression that the experience of a MKAL encompasses both the wonderful shared experience and the endured hardship – depending on the knitter.

I have found the same in KALs we have done in the Tuesday night knitting group I attend. There are those of us who get the yarn and the pattern and return three weeks later with a finished project. Then there are those of us who get the yarn and the pattern and return three weeks later to see the others’ finished projects and then want to either cry or vomit, depending on how difficult we have perceived the project to be.

To my shameful credit, I have not finished either of the two KALs from the group. Why I think the MKALs will be different is either the result of some rampant denial on my part or a hopefulness that I can change. I am betting on the former.

So, I am going stash diving to find just the right yarn to knit my projects. Maybe knitting a stole with 1000 beads in it won’t be so bad after all.

I Will Not Allow My Personal Technological Shortcomings to Affect My Ability to be a Good Ravelry-er

2008-08-14T08:39:00.001-05:00

I love Ravelry, I really, really do. For those of you who have been living at the Idaho Knitter’s Separatist Camp (And no, the U.S. Government will not recognize the independent state of Yarnia no matter how many of you hole up there. Those in power have been infected with the most virulent strain of i-have-no-idea-what-normal-people-have-to-do-to-survive-itis colloquially referred to as Beltway Amnesia, so I doubt they will cave to pointy stick wielding peeved people.) with no internet access or contact with the rest of the knitting world, Ravelry is like a Facebook or My Space for knitters and other fiber enthusiasts. You set up an account and then put in your stash, your works in progress, your patterns, basically your whole knitting life.

That is if you are a good “Ravelry-er”.

I am not a good “Ravelry-er”. (I bow down and admit my debt of gratitude to those of you who are good Ravelry-ers as you make my favorite parts of Ravelry the greatest!) I do not have my stash photographed and catalogued. I do not have my WIPs photographed and catalogued. I do not have my knitting library catalogued. Basically, I just hang around in my groups and see what the other, more with it Ravelry-ers have done.

I decided that perhaps I should embrace my inner Ravelry-er and at least make an attempt at feigning hip, knitter coolness – it can’t all be Vera Bradley, Crocs, Birkenstocks, and smart phones. I managed to get a picture posted for my Ravelry identity – rubiconkimberly – a miniature of one of my favorite Maxfield Parish paintings. That took about an hour. First I had to find the picture, then I had to figure out how to put it up in my profile. I like technology. It doesn’t mean that I am all that great at figuring out how to use it.

To paraphrase Darryl Hannah’s character in Steel Magnolias, I will not allow my personal technological shortcomings to affect my ability to be a good Ravelry-er any longer.

So, this past weekend, Hubby and I went to my parents for a belated celebration of my mom’s birthday. I packed my new favorite bag with a bunch of my knitting accouterments and the camera so I could take some pictures. My parents’ house has great, natural lighting. Mine does not. I laid out my WIPs and took some pictures. An hour and a half later, I had my first WIP and item in my stash photographed, catalogued, and uploaded. I felt triumphant and like Murtaugh in Lethal Weapon – too old for this s---.

I am rapidly concluding that learning new technology is for the preschoolers among us as they don’t yet bear any animus towards Bill Gates, Microsoft logic, Internet Service Providers, hardware interfaces that are more in your face than interface, get brain cramps when it seems that the drop functionality in drag and drop is a myth or want to cry when plug and play is all plug and no play.

I am also learning that although I have all the trappings of the hip, sophisticated post-Reagan borners – a laptop, iPod, and smart phone – I am definitely not one of them. In short, I am a techie poser who at times in made painfully aware of that fact.

Knitting is a low-tech hobby in a high tech world. The way we get patterns may change. The way we get yarn, its fiber content, and dye method may change. The needles we use may one day be made of some high tech polymer that allows you to program in a stitch and row gauge and automatically adjust the needle diameter so you get the gauge you want. With all of that, it will still be basically two sticks and string. Thank the Knitting Muse!

It's Like the Elks Without the Secret Knock and Handshake

2008-08-07T09:05:00.001-05:00

How I missed my Tuesday evening knitting group! I think Hubby missed me going, too. He won’t admit it, but he needs his weekly dose of “man” time that does not include me pausing at the “She cried, “NO!”” channel to see which made for t.v. true crime movie is on. Of course Hubby doesn’t really ask what goes on at knit night. I think he may be afraid to know the truth.

We are not a secret society, so for the good of all spouses everywhere, I will give a peek at what goes on during knit night.

Depending on memory, there may or may not be wine or beer. We do not, however, engage in intoxicated knitting as that wouldn’t be prudent. It causes problems following a chart, thereby screwing up your project. Then there is the whole being drunk while trying to manipulate pointy sticks issue. OSHA wouldn’t approve.

Sometimes we have food. Sometimes not. It just depends on if anyone thought to bring snacks or if we have enough hungry people to order out. Then, if the carry out driver is particularly cute, we may start ordering out a lot from one particular place in order to match up some of the singles in our group.

Neither one of the knitting groups I attend have guy knitters in them. This allows us to engage in some relationship group therapy. Before any of you spouses think that this is a bad thing, I will tell you that our knitting group has saved more than one relationship. After mentioning a particular male spouse’s idiotsyncrasy, it was discovered that the knitter did not suffer alone and that it was an idiotsyncrasy particular to the male of the species. We are also very adept at reminding our sister knitters that if they chuck current spouse for new spouse they will have to start all over again. Who really wants to start over at Grooming and Table Manners for Males 101, much less have to experience the oh-my-god-he-is-going-to-see-me-naked-for-the-first-time-and-my-butt-looks-like-two-melting-clumps-of-cottage-cheese-because-I-have-had-three-kids angst. Think about it, guys. The stash is cheaper than a marriage counselor or a divorce.

Then there are the adult continuing education courses. We have had “Anal Bleaching: What it is and why pron stars do it”; “The Swingers in Your Neighborhood: Why they have to go on Oprah and gross us out”; “Ground Hog Control: Is a paintball gun an effective method of disposing of ground hogs in your back yard”; “Nudity on Basic Cable: Why do we only get to see flabby, middle age, white guy butt”; “What to do if you aren’t sure your doctor graduated from med school”; “Menopause: Stop laughing because you’ll be here in 10 years and turn the air conditioning on”; and “Why, if you have to prostitute yourself to put gas in your car, it is better to be a Dominatrix than a pole dancer”.

My favorite part of knit night is seeing the finished projects others brings. This past week, one of our group brought her newly finished Clapotis. Although she wasn’t sure she liked it, we all thought it was absolutely gorgeous and promised to steal it from her if she didn’t like it. Although several of us may be working on the same pattern, it is always fun to see how a different yarn can produce project envy.

That’s about it, except for the secret sacrifice to the knitting goddess. All I can say is read the book Harvest Home by Thomas Tyron.

Hand Over the Voodoo Doll and No One Will Get Hurt

2008-08-03T20:18:00.000-05:00

Someone has a voodoo doll with my name on it and they have been doing some nasty things to it.

I returned to work last Wednesday. Within 10 minutes of arriving at the office, I was greeted by one of the managers who said that they needed me to go to the jail to interpret for one of the nurses. I was told there were two Hispanic patients who needed an interpreter to speak with the nurse. OK. We got to the jail and I determined that only one of the people spoke Spanish and the other spoke Russian. I rushed from the jail to my home visits. I thanked the powers that be that I only scheduled three for Wednesday instead of a full day of four. When I returned to the clinic, I was summoned within 10 minutes of my return. It is so great to be needed, but not on the first day back after penance trips.

A couple of weeks before the reunion trip, I had started working on this scarf to donate as a prize for the variety show our church sponsors. I had worked on it to the exclusion of all else prior to the trip. I had not knit on the Pleiades series; I had not worked on Christmas socks; I had not worked on the Christmas shrug; nothing – nada- zippo-zilch. Since getting back from the trip, it has been the same. I am knitting the project from a simple lace pattern in JoJoland Melody. I bought the yarn and realized that I really do not like the colorway all that much. I have three skeins of it and thought it would work for this scarf.

Well, that is what I thought. I thought that I bought three skeins of the same color and dye lot. At least that was the lie the ball band told me. I pulled out skein two and started knitting with it. There was a giant stripe of blue that didn’t match anything else in the previous skein. Yeah! I got out skein three and rewound it, only to be unable to decide if it was a third color option or if it matched one of the other two skeins. Someone is seriously screwing with my knitting Mojo. If I find out who they are, let’s just say it won’t be at all pretty. I have 800 yards of yarn to restrain them with and some serious knitting hardware.

This is the thing that makes knitting less than the Zen – Yogic experience some people keep touting it to be. This is the type of situation that does not make a knitter’s blood pressure decrease. This is the kind of knitting that makes me want to set the whole thing on fire in the parking lot and laugh maniacally as it burns.

As if this were not insane enough, I can’t stop working on this scarf. I have become obsessed with figuring this out. I have a plan. I am working another end with skein three in the hopes that I can just graft the whole mess together when I finish because some string is not going to get the better of me.

I am going to take the latest of the Pleiades series with me to work tomorrow, just in case I need a little get Zen time. Having the socks with me also means that I will have 5 needles with me should I discover who stole my Mojo.

No Weddings and A Funeral

2008-07-31T09:30:00.000-05:00

July has been a month of what seems like nothing but travel. I think I might possibly be caught up on my sleep. Some of the travel has been more of the time variety than distance. Time travel is exhausting, especially when you are going backward instead of forward. Time travel is also not all that conducive to knitting as knitting is one of those activities that tends to keep one focused on the present. I will admit that of all the things that happened in July, it was good to heal one trauma from my teenage years.

In Argentina the legal driving age is 18. So, when I was there, I was unable to drive anywhere but the Baptist camp my family visited twice a year for an administrative meeting. My dad, brave soul that he is, determined that I should at least learn the basics of driving so I wasn’t completely unable to drive when we got back to the States.

Like most teenagers, I had lots of fantasies about driving. Driving was so completely cool. To be completely cool while driving, you had to have the right sunglasses – preferable Ray Ban Wayfarers - listen to some Rock and Roll, and have the windows rolled down on a summer afternoon. This was the fantasy.

The reality is that no one is very cool when they are sixteen driving a turd brown, Ford Falcon whose only redeeming quality is that is a stick shift and has a cassette deck (For those of you who are too young to remember when Reagan was president, cassette decks were THE thing to have in your car. Cassette tapes are kind of like CD’s in that they have music on them with the adventure of the possibility of being eaten by your cassette player, causing the magnetic tape inside the cassette being vomited out of your player.).

I got ready for one of my driving lessons. I was sitting in the car waiting for my dad. I had some sunglasses on – not Ray Bans, but that was a minor detail. I had the music on – low so I would know I was cool, but low enough that my dad didn’t hear it. I was ready. Now, one thing that completely destroys coolness - this is important because it is a point that many people overlook -is incompetence. You do not look cool taking a curve too wide and nearly wiping out an evergreen tree, but succeeding in getting the antenna all bent up by the branches, getting your dad so mad that he ends the lesson early and has to go lay down in a dark room with a cool rag on his head, and feeling embarrassed that your fantasy of coolness is now going to sound like a really lame reason for having turned on the music in the first place that you feign complete, utter stupidity by repeatedly uttering “I don’t know” to any and all interrogations.

This incident in itself would not have been so bad if it was not the precursor to the entire “Kimberly is a crap driver” phase of my life. Not that this was not partially earned by a major wreck within 6 months of getting my license, but 20 years is a long time to remember one wreck. Granted, the damage to the car was bad enough that I thought that the hammer my dad took out to the car to hammer out a “ding” in the bumper might actually go flying through the front windshield.

All of this history made me a bit apprehensive about telling my parents I was renting a car to go to a funeral in Western Kentucky with my dad and then up to Hodgenville to see my cousin who is in from Japan. I like driving, especially a sporty model with some zoom.

We got up early and started out. Dad talked and I drove. The drive was pleasant, except for the minor detail of renting a car without cruise control. We made it to Western Kentucky without incident. After the post-funeral lunch, we headed up to Hodgenville. We arrived without incident, although going the back way up some winding roads with plenty of blind hills and curves was a bit nerve wracking, especially with Dad giving the real estate report. I finally had to decide to focus on the driving and interject an “Oh.”, “I didn’t know that.” Or “That’s interesting” at intervals to not be rude.

While my dad talked with my aunt and uncle, my cousin and I escaped to Starbucks to sit and talk over coffee. My cousin and I have several things in common. At times I have wondered if we have lived past lives in Paris, because we are both such devotees of the café and salon culture. We try to get together when he is here so we can get caught up with each other. He tells me about Japan, how much he loves his job, and his travel to nearly every country in Europe and most of Asia. Through the years, we have spent many an afternoon this way. Unfortunately, the time is always too short and we had to go back to Louisville.

In one weekend I drove nearly 600 miles – all in-state. My dad did not seem to have a heart attack from my driving, although at one point on the way home, I thought he had died from a massive stroke until I heard him snore.

Hubby’s Reunion Chapter 7 – The Final Chapter

2008-07-30T19:30:00.000-05:00

The thing about being gone from home for close to a week is that you need an extra day off to ensure that you don’t have to go to work naked; parole the dog; catalogue the results of the science experiments in the fridge; and get work brain rebooted.

I picked The Sherm up Tuesday morning. She was like a prisoner granted parole from death row. She walked me all the way to the apartment door and then from the door to her dish. She inspected the house to make sure everything was as she left it and to make sure we had not picked up an interloper while we were gone. Reassured that we do not have to share our affection, she has implemented the plan she came up with in prison to make us pay. We will be her slave for a day or two so we are firmly and roundly punished for daring to put her in a kennel.

I did get some positive things accomplished while I was gone. I finished The Flanders Panel and have almost finished Eat, Pray, Love. No Vampire Porn this trip. Not that I didn’t have any in my bag, but Arturo Perez-Reverte is an amazing author. I knit half of the 24 inch back of a shrug in 2 X 2 ribbing, quite boring, but good car knitting. I knit most of a sock. I rested plenty.

Trust me when I say these reunions are like childbirth. By the time the next one comes around, you have convinced yourself you have forgotten all the discomfort and pain only to agree to go through it again.

Hubby’s Reunion Chapter 6

2008-07-30T07:30:00.000-05:00

Having survived Saturday evening’s dinner, we wake up on Sunday morning ready to go home. We load up the car. Hubby has a melt down. I practice my restorative breathing…. “I inhale the beauty of the world. I exhale all stress and strife. I inhale the calmness of the world. I exhale all my negative feelings. I inhale life. I exhale the long protracted death I am plotting right now if somebody doesn’t just calm down and relax. I inhale peace. I exhale the desire to throttle somebody in this room. I am inhaling peace and calm. OK. Maybe I am just inhaling. OK. Just breathe. Feeling blood pressure rising. Desire to strangle reaching the red zone. OK. OK. Just breathe. Remember, in a couple of hours you will be on the road. Come on breathe. If you hold your breath it will be worse. That’s it. Just inhale. Now exhale. Go to your happy place. You are sitting on the beach at sunset. You are watching the waves while reclining in your beach chair. Suddenly a shadow passes over you. It is Sven, your masseuse and cabana boy, holding a tray with a fancy, umbrella drink perched on top. That’s it. Blood pressure lowering.”

We are driving to Tennessee and spending the night to get home on Monday. I don’t know if I can stand two days in the car, but since we are headed home, I think I will manage.

At the family meeting after breakfast there is some debate about where the next reunion will be. No one mentions the Bahamas. No one mentions that perhaps we need to change the schedule to every fourth year instead of every second. I keep my mouth shut for fear of being volunteered for some horrible job – like planning the next one.

We meet up at the local Barbecue place for lunch. I go out to the car while Hubby pays for lunch. Just before he steps out of the door, the tropical downpour begins. He gets soaked. We drive to Georgia without speaking. It has all been too much. This is the reason the reunion only happens every second year. If it were every year, the probability of some unfortunate incident would increase exponentially.

We make it to Tennessee and the hotel with no problems. I lay down on the bed and relax. My back aches. My butt is flat. My legs crippled up. Still I am happy to be headed home. Before I fall asleep I express my gratitude to the universe that my family reunion is only an afternoon.

Hubby’s Family Reunion Chapter 5

2008-07-29T08:26:00.001-05:00

The pinnacle of Hubby’s Family Reunion is the Saturday evening meal together. At the last reunion, my favorite aunt in Hubby’s family and I had two glasses of wine each at the Saturday evening meal while one of Hubby’s cousins described how he was going to build an atom splitter in his garage and create cold fusion. The wine was medicinal. Otherwise, we would have set our hair on fire and run screaming into the night.

Never in my wildest imagination did I think it would be possible to top that. I think that my imagination is perhaps not wild enough as this reunion topped it. Unbeknownst to the rest of us, one of the cousins decided to have her wedding before the Saturday evening meal. I always find it interesting that people often choose a traditional church wedding ceremony in spite of the fact that it doesn’t reflect their personal spirituality. This is made painfully obvious when the couple repeat vows with facial expressions that are more “What am I promising because I have no idea what the dude in the robe is saying!” than “Right on! I pledge thee my faith and plight thee my troth.”

Even better, there was no wine as the dinner was in the basement of a local Methodist church. Some things are not meant to be experienced stone cold sober. Note to self, buy a hip flask before the next reunion. Note to self, remember to fill said hip flask with some of Kentucky’s finest bourbon.

As if that weren’t excitement enough, there was after dinner entertainment by an amateur storyteller and songwriter. I was able to finish the cuff of a sock and start the heel flap during the performance.

Hubby and I left as soon as we thought we could without engendering any bad feelings from the family. Back in the hotel room, I laid on the bed looking up at the ceiling pulling myself together. I spent a lot of time in the hotel room. I read. I knit. I watched t.v. I kept myself out of trouble.

One of the things about the South and Southern families in particular is this concept of blood. If you are not blood, even though you are on intimate terms with one of the family by blood, you are not truly family. You are an outsider. Outsiders cannot know family secrets. Outsiders cannot be trusted. Outsiders are also regarded with more than a little suspicion.

Another thing is that Southern families, while they can engage in some terribly misogynistic behavior, are a matriarchcal system. The co-matriarchs have died and there is some serious positioning for who will be the next matriarch. Oh, and the matriarch must be blood. The matriarch must be vigilant and guard against usurpers and those who might possibly not want to retain the family tradition and honor. While I have no desire to be Queen Bee, I do find several things a bit stifling. In particular the feeling that I have been transported into the Leave It to Beaver show.

While many of the women in the group have great careers and are doing some very creative things, in Reunion Land these achievements mean little. There is a tension between the younger generation (by younger, I mean the cousins approaching 40) and the old guard who need to keep the myth of Leave it to Beaver alive. There is no end to the chauvinism.

The truth is, in a family marinated and macerated in tradition, I have a hard time not stepping in it. So, I go. I sit. I knit. I pray that no one inherited the box of dead people’s hair and insist that I touch it. I pray that we leave before Hubby becomes too obnoxiously chauvinistic and we have to have the little talk about how real men don’t talk condescendingly to the women in their lives because it is a lack of respect and does not honor the image of the Creator in her. I pray that we leave before I let fly with the sarcastic wit in response to some phony and condescending behavior. I pray that we leave before I am struck dead by Divine lightning for what I am thinking. Most of all, I pray that I do not come across one of those killer snakes.

Hubby’s Family Reunion Chapter 4

2008-07-26T21:15:00.000-05:00

Oh, Georgia, state founded as a penal colony for England, why are you so long and boring? Oh, Georgia, state of cudzu, red clay, and gnats, why are every one of your interstate exits carbon copies of each other? What happened to the road side peach and boiled peanut stands? You have time to contemplate these things as you wait to reach the state line.

Somewhere between Tiffton and Valdosta, I had to drive through buckets of rain. The pavement was so hot that I couldn’t tell if it was the rain that was blinding or the steam. I also had the fun job of driving the two lane road from the interstate to Chiefland.

Believe me, it isn’t as interesting as it sounds.

Chiefland has a couple of bar-b-cue joints, a grocery store, and a Wal-Mart. One of the things I have paid attention to on this trip is that a lot of the local people I have seen in the service industry have the same, hard look. This look is one of people who have lived a harder life than I have. They struggle with bills, kids, and work in places that offer few opportunities. I make sure to give a little bit extra in tips, not that it assuages my guilt all that much.

The big event of arrival evening was the unveiling of the Picture Room and the Game Room. The names tell you all you need to know. I did some time in the Picture Room and broke out the knitting. Just a basic pair of Christmas socks. It was enough to keep me awake and half alert. It isn’t as interesting as it sounds.

Afterwards several of us walked across the parking lot to the Sonic for some frozen treats. Yum! I did not make the mistake of walking through the ditch of death. There are many ditches of death in Florida.

For those of you who are blissfully unaware of the dangers that lurk in Florida, I will enlighten you. First, there are the alligators who enjoy swimming in people’s pools and eating their pets. Then there are the snakes. They aren’t just any snakes. No, they are the people-eating, giants that squeeze you to death before they chomp on you, snakes. Much like killer bees of the 80’s, the killer snakes are projected to reach Kentucky within the next 15-20 years if global warming continues. Please recycle, go to hybrid cars, and stop eating meat so we can prevent killer snake migration. Your pets will thank you.

In Florida, unlike Kentucky, the evenings are warm enough that snakes will be mobile and on the prowl. In ditches of death you have more of a chance of encountering killer snakes who want to eat you. Unfortunately killer snakes can also climb stairs. I make sure that there are no snake tracks leading to my second floor hotel room.

Hubby’s Family Reunion Chapter 3

2008-07-26T10:30:00.000-05:00

Wonder Hotel of Horrors did not have breakfast. Go figure. At least I was in Asheville and devoted slave, ahem Hubby, was going to do everything I wanted until 3 o’clock when we left for Atlanta.

We had a heart stopping breakfast at Cracker Barrel. I generally like eating at Cracker Barrel because you at least know what you are getting. Then again, so far I was becoming great friends with disappointment and betrayal. Kind of like The Sherm when I dropped her off at the kennel.

There is one truth about Cracker Barrel food, it isn’t worth waiting after you placed your order for half an hour. Most of the food is pre-fab and pre-cooked. The only thing that isn’t pre-cooked are the eggs and the toast. Apparently, two eggs over medium and an egg sandwich with two eggs over hard take a half an hour to cook. This is despite the fact that the place isn’t that busy and that after everyone else in the restaurant is served it takes another 15 minutes for you to get your food.

We decided to stop at the Visitor’s Center as an insurance policy against further Asheville Leg of Reunion Trip 2008 suckiness. Alas, this was not to be as we were informed that the best event of the year in Asheville starts on Friday and we were there on Thursday. To further rub it in, an old hippy dude in a Viet Nam POW cap felt compelled to tell us that “Asheville’s version of Mardi Gras starts tomorrow, man. Too bad you won’t be here.” If ever I wanted to tell a complete stranger “F U, too, man.” That was it.

There is something about downtown Asheville, however that just washes your mind clean of all the crap you went through to get there. My first stop was the art and craft gallery in the old Woolworth building. I got this beautiful, hand blown, dichroic glass pendant. My next stop was Earth Guild. I got some Trekking to knit Cat Bordhi’s Tibetan Socks from her brilliant sock book. Then there were the chocolate truffles. European style, hand made chocolate truffles overwhelm your brain with so many endorphins that you forget all about the crap night sleep you had, the heart stopping breakfast that is sitting like a lump somewhere between your diaphragm and knee caps, and the hours still to go in the car to CHIEFLAND, Florida.

Even better was the drive up the Blue Ridge Parkway to the Arts and Craft Center. I saw handcrafted items of such beauty that made me want to weep. In particular was a desk with undulating lines and a hand lacquered finish that made me ache to build a house around it. This was not to mention the textile art from quilts to hand woven clothing.

At this point I decided it was better to leave Asheville with my eyes filled with beauty and amnesia about the night before.

The trip to Atlanta was uneventful. We had a wonderful hotel room that more than made up for the Bates Hotel Hell. We had dinner in a little Cuban restaurant. The food was great. We were going to have a good, complementary breakfast in the morning. Things were looking up.

Hubby’s Family Reunion Chapter 2

2008-07-25T10:30:00.000-05:00

Asheville is a 6 hour trip from Cincinnati. If you leave for Asheville after work, you will arrive in Asheville sometime after 11 p.m. and will be all snuggly in your hotel room around midnight. That is if everything goes well.

My first task prior to leaving Cincinnati was to take The Sherm to the kennel. The Sherm loves to ride in the car. The Sherm does not like being taken to the kennel. The Sherm does not like being betrayed by her favorite dog parent. The Sherm will have a week to plot her revenge.

My second task prior to leaving Cincinnati was to help load up the car. Because I have a tendency to travel with several small bags, I bought one huge bag to put the small bags in. Hubby was upset that I bought the bag, until he saw me carrying it to the car filled with my book bag, my knitting project bags, my writing stuff, and the rest of my traveling security blanket. Unlike our usual pattern, Hubby and I didn’t have any pre-trip incidents.

We made it Lexington without incident. We stopped in Knoxville supposedly so I could get some Starbucks, but the Starbucks was closed. I got some caffeine at the gas-mart. We drove on to Asheville without too much problem.

The problem with driving to Asheville in the dark is that Asheville is in the mountains. To get up the mountain, you must drive winding roads along side semis. To get up the mountain, you must have sack. The kind of sack that lets you hold your car on the road, in the dark, in a narrow lane at speed, instead of driving all kinds of different speed and sloshing your wife around in the passenger seat to the point that car sickness seemed the best option.

The worst was to come. Before embarking on a journey that ends with you sleeping snugly in your hotel room, it is best to actually get directions to said hotel room. Before embarking on a journey that ends with you sleeping snugly in your hotel room, it is best to check the directions one has printed off from Mapquest to ensure that the destination is the hotel where your room is booked and not some apartment complex up some dark road where you swear you hear banjos playing and pigs squealing.

Once you have stopped at the Fed-Ex Kinkos to get revised directions, after you have sprung for the 20 cents a minute for internet access, please for the love of god and all that is holy spend the extra dollar to actually PRINT the directions.

Up to this point, I had refused to admit that perhaps this leg of the trip was cursed, when we walked into the hotel room at 1 a.m. I was convinced. The room was billed as non-smoking, but had the distinct smell of burned tobacco substance. The bathroom also had some six legged visitors. Replacement room thankfully had no burnt tobacco smell or bugs, but was full of mold and mildew from the leaking air conditioning unit from the upstairs room. That would have been bearable had the bed not been made from cinder block. Oh, I forgot the special ambiance created by the air conditioning unit that sounded like a WW II turbo prop taking off, that was more effective than an alarm clock waking one up every half hour on the half hour.

At least we made it to Asheville.

Hubby’s Family Reunion Chapter 1

2008-07-24T21:22:00.001-05:00

There are several phrases in the Old Testament that I learned to love as a small child. These phrases let you know something big was about to happen. One of them was so and so girded up his loins…. This phrase was so frequent that I wondered if any of the men in the Old Testament could do anything without girding up their loins. (For those of you who do not have the benefit of a Baptist Sunday School Education, men in the Old Testament wore tunics. As any woman who has ever worn a dress of any length will tell you, you can’t run very well in a dress. To get around this, men would take the back part of their dress and pull it up between their legs in the front and tuck it into their girdle (belt) – unless they were Scots. In that case they just didn’t wear underwear and made sure their skirt was all nice and flowy, not that there are many Scots in the Bible. This is just a useless piece of information that might help you win Jeopardy one day. I digress.)

Another phrase goes something like this… In the spring of the year, when the kings went to war… That is all kings but David, who stayed home and wound up impregnating his favorite army commander’s wife. Like most men, it never occurred to David to just say, “Yes, I slept with her. It was wrong. I should never have done it. I am sorry.” What follows is this tale of murder, heartbreak, family disintegration, and sadness.

I mention this because, since I married Hubby, I have been introduced to a new phrase. It goes something like this… In the hottest, most humid week of the year, Hubby’s family has their reunion somewhere in the Deep South. I mention the Deep South because many people are under the impression that Kentucky is the Deep South. Let me assure you that this is untrue. If you want South, think Georgia, North Carolina, or Florida. These states have heat and humidity even the most Southern part of Kentucky could not contemplate.

So, this year, we have started our trip to the reunion being held in Chiefland, Florida. Where is Chiefland, Florida you might ask? Nowhere in the cool happening places in Florida like Orlando, Miami, or Ft. Lauderdale. When I looked up Chiefland in the atlas, I noticed that Chiefland was surrounded by these little pictures of plants. I thought, “Hey, there is some kind of botanical garden or something in Chiefland”. This was before I looked up the little plant symbols in the atlas legend. The little plants meant swamp. Oh, yeah. Heat. Humidity. AND BUGS! The trifecta of fun.

I did, however, extract one concession from Hubby. If I went to the reunion with him, we would take a small detour through Asheville. I love Asheville. Asheville is wonderful. Asheville is great. Asheville can fortify you with enough coolness to get through a weekend reunion.

Before you can enjoy all that coolness, you have to get to Asheville.

A Tale of Two Mugs

2008-07-16T22:45:00.008-05:00

Each morning these two mugs greet me at my desk in my cube. As far as cubicles go, mine is okay. I have a window. I have access to decent, dark roast coffee. I have a great boss and co-workers, a huge change from just over a year ago. When I started my job, I was flush with the new job smell. Well, now, I have come to terms that each day can either be one of those good kind of days or one of those days where I would rather stay at home for another couple hours with the covers pulled over my head.

I bought the Gandhi mug soon after I started my job in public health.

I wanted something to remind me that I could “be the change” I wanted “to see in the world”. I still believe that, but I will admit that after a year of seeing some award winning apartments owned and maintained by the local slumlords, that I don’t always feel so full of goodness and light. I still believe that I can be an agent of change, but sometimes quoting Starbuck of Battlestar Galatica fame feels better.

Lately, I have been more in a FRAK frame of mind. I think that at times it is because I feel that what I do is akin to trying to scoop the ocean with a sieve. Sometimes the rampant outbreaks of STD’s, endless bureaucracy that impedes getting people the help they need, nervousness about the economy, and a myriad of other bothersome issues threaten to outpace my supply of “I Give a Damn” pills that I keep in my desk drawer. Trust me when I say I understand why people who work for the Department for Motor Vehicles are so surly at times.

The latest chapter in the FRAK chronicles has to do with the realization that the so-called Comforting Restraint to immobilize children so you can vaccinate them is little more than an euphemism for Human Straightjacket that enables a third party to inject your child with dead viruses in hopes that the live viruses won’t make them ill. Somehow, drinking my coffee from my FRAK mug makes me feel better.

Fortunately for me, the Gandhi mug moments are more frequent than the others. I know that I do make a difference for those clients who would not have a competent interpreter. I know that organizations, governments, and nations will change if each individual decides that they are going to do what they can in their own little patch to make the world a better place.

As Madam Harlot Pearl-McPhee points out in her writing and speaking engagements, knitters may understand this concept better than others. We know that one stitch repeated thousands of times can produce a sweater of such beauty and warmth to make you weep. We know that through the gift of one knitted garment we can express our deepest well wishes, blessings and love. We know that the gift of a simple hat, scarf, mittens or pairs of socks to the right person at the right time can remind someone that they matter and someone cares enough to spend their life energy to keep them warm – regardless if the recipient ever meets the knitter or not.

Stay tuned. The germ of an idea has taken root. Remember that you, too, can “be the change you wish to see in the world.” Perhaps your opportunity is closer than you think.

It's Family Reunion Time

2008-07-13T07:30:00.000-05:00

In the summer there are several familial rituals that can be more torturous than Thanksgiving or Christmas, because there is no expectation of fun. I am talking about that age old ritual called the family reunion. Both my family and Hubby’s indulge in staging a family reunion each summer. Generally, my family reunion is an afternoon affair held in the fellowship hall of a local Baptist church. Hubby’s family reunion generally takes place in the deep South, requiring a drive through Georgia, during the hottest part of the summer, and lasts a minimum of 72 hours.

My parents met in university, outside of their local gene pool. (Thank the Lord! I am not joking about this.) Both were the first generation in their family to go to university. My mom is from Eastern Kentucky and my dad from Central Kentucky.

Contrary to popular belief, Kentucky is not a monolithic state. Kentucky has several different geographical regions and each region has a different culture and heritage. Eastern Kentucky is all about coal, with limited flat land for farming. Central Kentucky, on the other hand, is the land of picture postcards of the Bluegrass with colts running wild on gently rolling hills. In Eastern Kentucky, soup beans are pinto. In Central Kentucky, the beans are Great Northern, as only poor people from Eastern Kentucky eat pinto beans.

What is true for both branches of my family is that the roots are most definitely rural. This does not mean, however, that my generation of the family tree is rural. Most of us are college educated and have left rural life behind.

The thing about my family reunion is that my paternal great-grandmother gave birth to 14 children who survived to adulthood. This means that I am related to most of the county where my dad was born, either by blood or by marriage. This also means that there are many people whose names, occupations, and address I have the opportunity to forget or confuse.

I usually take my knitting and observe. It is a lot easier to sit and listen to the stories as most of the people who come are older and have plenty of stories and not enough people to hear them. Some are expert storytellers with a sense of plot and timing. Others are of the more journalistic variety, telling the who, where, what and when without many frills. Still others tells stories of seeming little importance, with little point only that it is something that matters enough to them to pass along to the rest of us.

I realize sitting there that this is the double bladed curse and blessing that has taught me to tell a good story. I have heard the stories of my people longer than I have been knitting, and I have knit for 34 of my 39 years. On my father’s side, those stories are full of who bought which farm – literally and figuratively; years of good harvest and bad; who married whom; who scandalized the family; and the survival of hard times. On my mother’s side, those stories are full of those who lost their lives in the mines; the antics of my jokester uncle; who married whom and why; and the survival of hard times.

Many people believe that in the South we are born storytellers. The truth is that we are not. We learn storytelling from the cradle mainly because we got cable t.v. later than everybody else did. I have noticed that this notion of Southern storytellers may be fading. We have fewer stories to tell and so get a lot less practice than our grandparents.

For my part, however, I strive to keep the stories and storytelling alive one blog at a time.

Life Has Been .... Interesting

2008-07-10T07:43:00.002-05:00

I am not much one to remember ancient proverbs. So many of the proverbs sound so trite and trivial that my brain cells refused to be wasted in such a manner. Still there are a few that appeal to me. One is a proverb on revenge - If you sit by the river long enough, the body of your enemy will come floating by. The other is a curse for one's enemies - May you have an interesting life.

So before I go any further, would the person who cursed me please identify themselves so I can go sit by the river and wait - with my knitting of course.

The past ten days have indeed been interesting.

In the past ten days, I have found out that my maternal grandmother has Stage 5, inoperable ovarian cancer.

In the past ten days, I have done a home visit with a woman that left me feeling hopeless to help her due to lack of community resources while I drove home to my comfy little apartment to sleep that night in air conditioned comfort.

In the past ten days, I have had the discussion with the vet about when it's time to take the Sherm for the big sleep.

In the past ten days, Hubby's computer has crashed making him Mr Grumpypants.

In the past ten days, due to aforementioned computer crash, I have had to hear all about the new computer Hubby is going to build.

In the past ten days, I got my commemorative Battlestar Galactica "FRACK" mug from the Sci-Fi Store and took it to work, where it sits next to my Ghandi quote "Be the change you want to see in the world." mug.

In the past ten days, I have gotten a good review and raise at work.

In the past ten days, the Sci-Fi Channel has had some B-Movies that were made for knitting lace and knit lace I did.

In the past ten days, I have knit with some fabulous hand dyed yarn (Fiberoptic on Etsy) in a pattern that brings out all the best. Pictures and post to follow.

In the past ten days, I finished pair four and started pair five of the Jitterbug Addiction series socks. Pictures and post to follow.

Having an interesting life is only a curse if we see only the bad things that happen and forget the good. I am finding that in my interesting life, I may go through a bad patch, but the good interesting generally outweighs the bad interesting. Even better the good interesting has come into my life with my interesting friends and supportive family.