Meeting Ysolda Teague

One of my favorite things about Purl Diva’s, aside from the amazing yarns Ellen stocks, is the little email updates that tell you who’s going to be around and when. (Yes, I know email updates are commonplace now. But I still appreciate them, okay? I lived a good chunk of life without a home computer, basically because there were no such things.) And this little email update informed me that Ysolda Teague would be at the shop.

I live a good distance from Purl Diva's, which means I usually reserve visits for “special occasions” so I can justify the trip. Meeting a designer whose work I like? Yep. It qualified.

So yes, I also tend to stock up when I go down there (Oy vey, what I spent when I took the Franklin Habit class), though with Thing 1 graduating high school and a family wedding in New York this June, I was minimalist to the extreme this trip.

That hurt. Badly. It was especially painful as there was more of the naturally-colored alpaca that I love (might need two skeins to make it a shawl, after all), and some beautiful beaded silk in soft pastels hanging right near the register, just begging me to take it home. (I can still hear it sniffling in the background. If it doesn’t give up soon I’m going to have to buy it some cold medicine, because I am under strict orders to myself NOT to call up Ellen and buy it instead. I hope I listen to me.)

I did have extra cash in my pocket, but it was given me by a friend with the understanding that I would pick up dinner at the Bombay Mahal and said friend might have been cranky if I had returned with alpaca and silk instead. Worse yet, he may have tried to eat them in lieu of the lamb bhuna he ordered. He is that kind of person.

So, cautious pocketbook notwithstanding, I ventured down to Purl Diva’s last Saturday. I had seen some of her work in Knitty; the Airsaig in particular caught my eye, in part because I’m a geek for the history of things, be it culture-wide or personal, and I loved the story of her grandfather’s talent for knitting, and of how she inherited his yarn. I peeked at her website, was bowled over by the new (to me) designs, and quickly talked my lovely Thing 2 into babysitting Things 3 & 4.

I’m always of two minds about attending these sorts of gatherings. It is nice to get out and show support for designers who do work you admire, but I nonetheless feel like I have about 15 left feet and am stuffing all them in my mouth simultaneously when it comes to actually talking to people. Stick me on a stage where I’m being somebody else and I’m fine. (Well, most days. I did have one mucked up dress rehearsal recently.) But in a room full of strangers as myself? I tank, baby, every time. I go very shy, which makes me nervously talkative, which makes me wish I would just shut up.

Fortunately, there were a lot of nice knitters there, as well as Ysolda

who very sweet, charming, and quietly helpful and who managed not to look as if she wanted to hit 911 any time I opened my mouth—I thought that very gracious of her. There was Sadie, who seemed to share my affinity for the color purple in all its shades, judging by the number of yarns we kept agreeing we liked. (Should I worry that I can now spot Noro and Brown Sheep's Lamb's Pride across a store and know what they are without getting closer? Nah. They’re both distinctive on the shelf, so it has nothing to do with me spending too much time around yarn, right? Right.) And there were an oddly high number of people who had once been Midwesterners, or who were current, traveling Midwesterners, in attendance. It makes me wonder what’s up with us all running back East. Blog for another day, I guess.

And, of course, there were the samples of Ysolda’s work. She is such a talented designer!

(this sweater is Matilda Jane)

Everything was beautiful, though I think I fell most in love with Vivian, which is a cabled hoodie. I’m still kicking myself for not taking a picture of the cuff detail, let alone the whole sweater--I had another attack of the shys about then. Anyway, Ysolda runs the cable down into the cuff itself, and said cuff has a lovely, soft flair to it. Fortunately, if you click on the picture of Vivian on Ysolda's website, you will be taken to Twist Collective, where they do have a picture of the sleeve detail. (And yes I am off to purchase that particular pattern from her website when I finish up here, because it’s not expensive and I decided it would be my treat to myself for catching up blogs—snow zombies, complete with pictures, are being written up next, woot—and surely I will be good enough to wait until later to purchase the yarn so don’t give me that look. I can be good. I can show restraint. Oh, quit laughing.)

The other thing that stood out for me was the casual speed at which Ysolda knits and crochets. To someone who does both slowly (that would be me, in case there was any doubt), it was sort of hypnotic to watch, especially since she throws her yarn when knitting. By the time I get enough experience to be that fast, I’ll be so old I won’t remember what the sticks, hook and strings are for, you know?

All in all, it was a lovely day. I walked away with Ysolda’s book and some stitch markers for the other project I’m a hairsbreadth from casting on. (Shhh, fuss at me later.) And that is all. Seriously. I stopped off at Bombay Mahal where I picked up the friend's order and some to-die-for lamb pasanda, along with two kinds of naan, cucumber raita and rice pudding, and went on my merry way. (Though I have to say that Shere Punjab is next on the To Try list--I've heard it's fabulous as well.)

I think all Saturdays should be like that one, don’t you? (Well, like that one, but with a bigger yarn purchase budgets and less feet stuffed into mouth.)

We interrupt our regularly scheduled knit/crochet blog to bring you this breaking news

Well, okay, so you don’t need the blog to tell you what’s been all over the national papers these past two days: on Tuesday, the Maine State House approved LD1020, and on Wednesday, in a move that had my jaw dropping (but in a really good way) Baldacci quickly signed it into law. Baldacci was quoted in more papers than I can count: "In the past, I opposed gay marriage while supporting the idea of civil unions," [he] said in a statement read in his office. "I have come to believe that this is a question of fairness and of equal protection under the law, and that a civil union is not equal to civil marriage."

Opposition is already gearing up a petition drive for a people’s veto, but I’m hopeful that if that comes about, the courts will do as the Iowa Supreme Court did and say, “Sorry, banning same-sex marriage is constitutionally a wash,” or, in more formal language:

“The court reaffirmed that a statute inconsistent with the Iowa constitution must be declared void even though it may be supported by strong and deep-seated traditional beliefs and popular opinion,” said a summary of the ruling issued by the court.

There are some strong correlations between this issue and what we faced with desegregation. I’ve read opinion write-ins following the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision—I grew up there—and a recurring theme was: how 7 could trump the will of 3,000,000?

Because sometimes it just has to, I guess. That may seem simplistic, but I can guarantee that many of those people who are up in arms about allowing GLBTs the same civil liberties as the rest of us do believe that race should not be a basis of restriction of rights. They will say that to discriminate against any of God’s children is not right, and will point to the behaviors of past generations of whites as heinously wrong, all the while Biblically justifying their GBLT discrimination.

Just as many whites did when it came to African-Americans. Hey, I’m mostly white, despite a few family tree veers in other ethnic directions. I grew up in an all-white community; everyone considered me white because no one knew I wasn't entirely Caucasian. I know that it can play out that way. I’ve watched it happen, and on all sorts of issues. Past battles fought are seen as right in retrospect, but God help anyone who tries to shake current beliefs.

These were the sorts of things I have discussed before, and the sorts of things I expected to continue discussing when the subject of legalization of gay marriage came up.

But I was surprised. My post-signed-into-law-excitement thoughts have been of an entirely different nature than I could have foreseen.

My friends and I were doing the long-distance celebrating of legalizing on Facebook, as Fbers will do, when one of my former play directors posed a thoughtful question. (He’s that sort of person, is L.) Why were so many straight people so involved in discussing this, when his gay friends were being pretty quiet about it? Why did it matter to us? Or more to the point, why did it matter to me, as this was my wall he was posting on.

Good question, that. I gave my reasons: 1) marginalizing any group heightens the chance of marginalization of even more people, and all on as arbitrary a basis as this marginalization (Christians wouldn’t consider themselves bound by Islamic law, after all, so why are we Christians assuming all other faiths and non-faiths should be bound some Christians’ beliefs?) and 2) legislating love, thereby impeding two persons’ desires to make a life-long commitment one to the other, is just plain wrong.

L. read this, I’ll assume, and possibly other wall posts on the subject as well. The next day, he posted this:

L. -- is wondering why people demanding tolerance, aren't very tolerant, if you see things a little different. Why so much anger?

That’s a good question, if you ask me. Because one, yes, I have been angry that it has taken us this long as a country to get it together. Seven other countries, beginning with the Netherlands in 2001, have enacted laws legalizing, not civil unions or partnerships, but same-sex marriages (see About.com's data for more details). And we, the country that has been famous for at least paying lip-service to our democratic ideals, have done nothing, and furthermore our federal government has bowed out of this one, more than happy for once to not try to trump states’ rights. So it’s literally 50 different battles that must be fought.

The cheeky part of me, when looking at how much longer other countries have had such legislation, also dearly wants to point out that if people are poised for lightning-bolt retribution from Above, they shouldn’t worry as we’ve had a seven-country bolt buffer (and for far too many years). Chances are we’ve received the Divine all-clear, you know?

A bit snarky of me, I know. I’ll admit it. And I’m adamant about equal rights in marriage, that’s for sure. I can see why people might perceive that as angry.

And yet, the angry rhetoric of those who oppose same-sex union bothered me so badly that I was unable to stay in the room and watch the video stream of the Senate hearings that my co-workers had up. The person who was speaking is no different than I am in level of conviction, nor was he passively standing by the sidelines. He was vocal about his opinion, just as I am about mine. So, was L. right? Is there no difference between the lack of tolerance?

I hope there is. I do dislike the stand, I don’t understand why love thy neighbor can’t be more prevalent than what an apostle who didn’t even run with Jesus thought, but I hope I haven’t flashed over into the world of hate conviction. There’s a fine line between the two and we do after be careful as we walk that line. But to stand on the sidelines, would be, as Edmund Burke pointed out, allowing evil to flourish, because [we] stood by and did nothing.* They don’t see their behavior as evil, granted, but hate is the true evil in the world. It damages those who hate as much as those who are hated. And that’s sad.

I think I like how E.M. Forester put it best, though. His character, George Emerson, said that we all cast a shadow wherever we stand. The best we can do is to pick a place where we won’t do much harm, and stand in the sun for all we are worth.

He’s right. At this point in life, I just want to keep my shadow print as pale as possible. Maybe I’ll go play with sticks and strings under a tree where the light is still there, warm and brilliant, and yet softly filtered. That sounds about right, don’t you think?

Okay, next blogs will be back on-topic and about dazzlingly controversial issues such as why the Snow Zombie don't melt when frolicking in the dandelions, successfully convincing myself that summer IS the logical time to be knitting hats and mittens and crocheting warm shawls, and the utter asininity of ordering yarn for another project when I’ve already got more than enough on needles and hook. (I'll also catch up the reading and music lists. I've stumbled onto some stellar recording artists of late...)


*The quote I paraphrased was: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. However, in the course of looking it up today for accuracy’s sake, I discovered that it isn’t an actual quote at all. I ended up paraphrasing a paraphrase. And the geek in me feels duty bound to point that out. What Burke actually said in Thoughts on the Cause of Present Discontents was, “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”

I think I see why the paraphrase caught on… ;-)

Friday, May 1 is Just Another Friday the 13th to a Dyslexic

(Being a dyslexic means I can mess with numbers at will, and, more to the point, without will. It's a built-in thing.)

Anyway, it's been one of those days, I have to say. Don't believe me? Allow me to illustrate. Please use public service beep, squawk, or freaky annoying sound of your choice for each of the following PSAs.

Public Service Announcement the First: If you set your P2's (Samsung's iPod) alarm for uber early so you can do a mountain of dishes and make yummy lemon bars, then set the P2 on the other bed pillow (as you have done all year), said P2 will somehow slide under your shoulder (as it has never done before) where 1) your shoulder will continually hit the touch screen's snooze option and 2) the headphones will be too buried under covers to hear.

(Just sayin'. In case you were, you know, wondering about things like that.)

Public Service Announcement the Second: You should always remember that just because you've taught the Things, on pain of beheading, to stack the dishes, this does not mean they've rinsed them, and you could be stuck with bits of chocolate cake clinging to EVERY last plate you try to wash.

Ask me how I know this. I dare you.

Please note that couscous in a bowl has the same effect and is very noticeable if you have just drained and cleaned sink and refilled it with fresh, hot, soapy water.

Public Service Announcement the Third: One should remember that if one is running late due to evil P2/dishes conspiracy and decides to shave in shower anyway, that odds are good that one will drop razor and not only knock blade head free, but also get to watch it fall right down that gaping abyss the landlady insists on calling a drain. And once new blade head is located (after dripping all over bathroom), one WILL put it on razor upside down.

If one is lucky, one will notice this mistake and correct before one shreds one's legs to bits.

(And believe me, that was a third person moment if ever there was one...)

Public Service Announcement the Final: If you discover that your too-young-to-stay home-alone Things 3 and 4 don't have school and your slave-babysitting-labor Thing 2 does have school, and you entice Things 3 and 4 to work with you on the promise they can play on the HUGE side lawn by your office all day...IT. WILL. RAIN. A LOT. And you will discover just how small your strangely pointy office is when you cram three people and a mini DVD-TV into it for eight hours.

Is anyone else laughing yet? Because I have been, all day. There comes a point, you know, where you can't do anything but. (And I haven't even discussed the damp weather hair which has simultaneously flattened and yet swooshed out on the ends of the layers, making me look like a very brunette, very bedraggled, Farrah Fawcett wannabe.)

Besides, I am a happy crafter today, so happy that despite the days adventures I have been double knitting blithely on, stupidly secure in the idea that I have not knitted the two sides together. (I'll check that for sure tomorrow. I may be stupidly happy, but I see no reason to tempt fate.)

Why am I happy?

The Maine Senate held their second vote yesterday--they are passing their bill on to the House with NO referendum to allow for a public vote on legalizing gay marriage. As well they should, for who am I (or anyone else) to vote on whether or not someone else can have the rights which are unthinkingly given to me? The House is expected to pass it, and then it's on to our erstwhile Gov. Baldacci, who has yet to support either side. I'm wondering if he'll wimp out and neither sign nor veto, which means that after a set period of time the bill would become law without his interference (s'how it works on the Federal level anyway--thank you School House Rock). Kind of a lose-lose situation for a guy who can't seem to take a stand, and I rather hope he ends up with both sides torqued off at him, seeing as he's trying to keeping two very opposing groups happy.

The opposition has vowed that if this passes, they will go door-to-door to get signatures enough for a people's veto, which means that the vote would go back out to the state-at-large (if I'm understanding these things correctly).

I hope they knock on my door.

Big News

Yes, I am a bad blogger. I am way behind on posting on anything.

It's been a wild ride through February, March and April, from a love life with more twists and turns than a Maine back road, to busy, busy, busy rehearsals for both one-act plays (one of which went on to a festival, so that only just ended last weekend) to two birthdays to celebrate, to one breast cancer scare which fortunately turned out to be nothing but a scare, but which did leave me a tad anxious for a few days (i.e. a slightly zoned out mess who only got through it because of one rock steady friend--thanks, mi hijo. This is not to say other of my friends are not rock steady--he was just the only state-side person I told, outside of two co-workers who happened in on me right after the "Hi, it's Tuesday, could we have you back in on Thursday, please?" call). Throw a few swine flu cases in our county on top of it all, and well, I've not felt particularly witty of late.

Of course, it could be argued that I'm not particularly witty, period. So perhaps one could say I was even more, er, witless than usual?

Um. Yes. That would seem to cover it. (Sigh.)

So. Zombies this weekend, hopefully. Some additional photos will be required due to nature of cool thing friend did to them--they're group shots now, rather than having individual moments of glory. Also notes of progress (or lack thereof) on other projects, such as the double knitting and the still-to-be crocheted shawl.

But that's not why I'm blogging today.

Nope. Today's news is something that just blew me out of the water, even though I had been checking the news online for it.

Guess what my lil ol adopted home state did today?!

http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/newsupdate.php?updates/gay-marriage-passes-on-first-vote

Did you guess yet? Did you?

Okay, so I'm providing a link but am still too excited to just wait patiently for you to click on it. So, in a direct quote from the Kennebec Journal, "The Maine Senate voted 20-15 today in favor of a bill to allow same-sex marriages in Maine."

It's got two more votes to get through--one more Senate required and then on to the House--so still more of a battle, but...we're finally taking steps to uphold constitutional rights of all our citizens rather than letting the prejudiced thinking of some of them hold sway. In no other issue that I can think of have we, the people, been asked to vote on the privileges of another group of people.

That's just wrong. Especially when it's the religious beliefs of one group that are infringing upon the constitutional rights of others. Separation of church and state, babies.

Come to that, I think it's time to go dig out my bumper sticker that my previous landlady gave me:

I believe in the separation of church and hate.

Because really, in listening to the Senate debates, the level of hate I heard from the opposition was terrifying. Time for more rational thought to hold sway, and kudos to the clergy of all faiths who provided it in their support of legalization of gay marriage. No more judging, no more assuming one way of loving is better than another. Instead let's see accepting people for who and what they are, especially since church emphasizes that we are as God made us. And geez, there was that son of God (or extremely insightful prophet, depending on your religion), who preached tolerance and love endlessly...

One happy little straight Christian girl here. (Too happy for commas in their proper places, even.)

I Didn’t Plan To Do It This Time

Okay, the snow zombies are coming. Sometime. Honestly. But the friend who wanted to help me do something “fun” with their little photo shoot just got slammed hard at work. And since he, like many people, is just hoping his company can remain a company rather than a name on the economic casualty list, I’ll not be bothering him about them right now.

Understandable, I hope. Dude has a bit more to worry about than making the SZs look fetching, you know?

So today we’re going to move to another favorite theme of mine: corruption of youth. Yes, it happened again. But it wasn’t me who started it this time, honest! And the where, I’ll admit, came at a time and a place when I least expected it to happen.

Thing 3 had a Court of Honor for Boy Scouts.

(And, note to anyone out there who is thinking, “Those guys discriminate against homosexuals!!” Yes, they do. And do my kids know I don’t agree with that policy? Hell, yeah. One of my oldest friends is gay, and I’ll go head to head with anyone, Scout people included, over whether he is doing something “wrong”. Because he’s not. IMHO, I don’t really think God gives a flip about who you love—He cares about how you love. So there, BSA is, to me, totally wrong.

But I’m not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater, folks. Lots of institutions, like schools, churches, or oh, say, my own government, have policies and philosophies with which I strongly disagree. But that hasn’t stopped me believing in a higher power or seeing that my kids are educated. Nor has it made me move out of my country, though if we would have elected another Republican, I would have considered it most seriously. For me, Scouts has been a way to spend one-on-one time with each of my Things—and that’s kind of tricky when one gets past the Dr. Seuss-imposed limit of two—and a way for us to be able to camp as a family when the ex had issues with that and I was trying to keep familial peace. Stupid in retrospect—trying to keep the familial peace, I mean—but it seemed a good idea at the time.

And, more importantly, this Troop has accepted Thing 3’s Asperger’s Syndrome without a blink; instead of being on the outside, Thing 3 is very much in; as in as a kid with Asperger’s lets himself get, anyway. So Scouts? It’s a big deal. He succeeding there, and he loves it. We’re staying.

Ahem. I will now step off the soapbox.)

Anyway, I was knitting while the talks were going on (shocking, I know) and while they were setting up for Court of Honor. Currently, I’m double knitting a scarf for Thing 4 to go along with his mittens and hat. I fully expect to have to make new mittens for next winter, but that’s not a big deal as the scarf will keep until then (it will have to, seeing as his mother didn’t get round to starting it until right before spring hit). Anyway, I was knitting and purling away and kind of people watching, when I noticed a little girl. She had stopped at our table a couple of times before the meal, and I thought perhaps she found Thing 4 kinda cute. (They’re near the same age.) But now here she was, after the meal, near the wall, watching our little family unit. Thing 4 had moved to see the video they had shown more clearly, but she was still staring at the empty seat next to me in which Thing 4 had sat.

I finally cottoned on to the fact that she wasn’t boy gazing, but yarn gazing. She was staring at the bright red and dark blue piles of yarn with a look I supposed I would see on my own face if yarn stores had mirrors hung over their bins of baby alpaca.

I smiled at her.

She smiled back, took a step forward, almost said something, then retreated to the wall again.

I knit and purled. I glanced back. She was still there. She did her little step forward, step back. And then?

“I knit too,” she blurted out.

“Cool! You wanna come help me with this?”

She most definitely did. She shyly informed me, when I asked, that she made dishcloths and blankets. She was fascinated with the scarf and with me knitting two different colors at once. I plopped the needles into her hands and showed her how it worked.

She had never purled before, and had most definitely never double-knitted, but she totally loved it. She wanted to know why I was using both hands to create the stitches. I explained how I had to keep each color on its own side so I didn’t knit the sides together, so each hand had to help. I showed her how you could pull the two sides apart, and what the right side of the fabric (for now hidden inside the scarf—I double-knit inside out) looked like. She couldn’t get over the smoothness of stockinette stitch. I explained that if she knitted one row on straight knitting, then purled back, she would get fabric that looked like that.

She continued on down my row, checking to make sure she was wrapping the yarn the correct way with the purl. She had only ever thrown yarn (er, no, I still can’t remember which that is) but she took to throwing with her right to purl and slipping with her left to knit as she alternated stitches like a pro. She accidentally slipped a stitch here or there when the yarn didn’t catch right, but I showed her how to fix that.

The absolute best, totally coolest thing about this surprise knit moment, though? When the candle was lit and lights turned down and when I went up with Thing 3 to stand with him as they ask parents to do, that chica just flipped on my Knit Lites and kept right on stitching.

(Imagine this picture in the dark. Darn flash ruins everything. But thanks, Thing 2, for thinking to take it!)

You rock, G. Hope I see you at the next meeting. Bring your sticks, okay?

Random Snow Day Moments

I absolutely could not believe it when I read my email from work this morning.

Classes are cancelled and offices are closed today (Monday, March 2nd).

I was further perplexed when I looked out the window and saw that my driveway was not a solid mass of snow, as it had been following the two previous big storms--neither of which had closed the campus.

Still, I didn't argue. Instead, I stayed curled up in my jammies, decadently reading Erin Hart's mystery Lake of Sorrows (good book) and contemplating whether or not I could wait almost a year for the newest William Kent Krueger, Red Knife, comes out in paperback.

I finally stretched and then pushed myself out of bed. (No, I'm not going to tell you how late it was, so don't bother asking.)

My eyes fell on the snow zombies. I had said in my last post that I was feeling more like picking up the needles and hook again. That had been only partially true, I'd discovered. Though I'd notched things down to quiet sadness, I found focus was still a bit fuzzled and I was maybe not quite as optimistically optimistic as I had optimistically projected.

The problem with reading, knitting, crocheting, writing (or working) is that while I absorb myself in the one task, my mind wonders into other territory. I call it thinking on simultaneous levels; others have referred to it is analytically freaky. There's probably some truth to both descriptions. (I mean, you're talking about a person who could listen to a never-read-it book on audio tape and keep up with the story line--I actually cried at a sad bit, okay?--while writing example business letters and not missing a beat nor falling behind on number of letter produced compared with the other example letter writers, none of whom were listening to audio books. My boss pointed out that most people can't truly listen and pay attention to one thing and write something else. I didn't know that. Heck, I listen to people tell me things and talk back to them while typing emails to other people about other things at the same time. I thought everyone did stuff like that, but evidently I'm a bit weird.)

Anyway, acting is the one place where I have to use all levels at once. There is simply too much happening onstage, too much to react to and timing to watch, etc. etc. It's the only time and place where I think in only one moment, the here and now. Well, maybe not the only one, but any others I can think of are rather personal and so not bloggable, you know?

(Tell me there are other level-thinking people out there who tend to think past/present/future simultaneously, okay? It'll make me feel better.)

Sunday's rehearsal was one of the best first run-throughs of which I have ever been a part. Terrifically fun cast members, stellar director. For a few hours, all of me was completely collected in one moment of synergy, with no offshoots into territory that really needs to go to ground anyway. It left me calm and centered and clearly focused. And that focus was still with me when I woke up this morning.

So, when I saw those snow zombies? Well...

Dudes. They're done.

They're having their wee pictures taken in the lightbox tomorrow, and then are being sent off to a pal in Chicago for some special treatment before being posted. Neglected Blogs promised something cool, remember? And hey, that's a whole whack of late Christmas and ALL my Hanukkah gifts gone in one go.

Getting that done made going out and tackling the driveway with the Things seem like a walk in the park. Thing Two went after the snow slump by the garage that had fallen from the roof the last thaw, and then froze itself to my driveway before I got home from work. (I'm seriously starting to loathe sloped metal roofs.) Thing Three valiantly trudged out to take on the snowplow hill at the top of the drive. Thing Four just went little-kid nuts with a mini-shovel and packed down more snow then he moved. And yeah, I got the entire rest of the driveway.

It was great. We had a snow dumping fight. (It's the best when the snow is too powdery for snowballs--just scoop and dump, preferably on someone shorter for full impact.) We discovered a good inch of ice at the top of the drive, hidden beneath the few inches of snow, which sort of pointed to why classes were canceled for snow I could have easily driven over. We were visited by a lovely yellow lab who played with us, then led the Things to the back yard, where he was almost buried in snow as he ran about with them. (Sometimes driveway shoveling just doesn't matter in the grand scheme, you know?) When everyone returned to the front yard to tell me of their adventures (like I hadn't heard and watched and laughed already), yellow dog came along. I christened him Sam, and the Things agreed. He looked very Sam-like.

Eventually, the Popsicles named Thing Three and Thing Four took their much-reddened cheeks inside to warm up. (I'm still pondering how it is that none of the Things got any of my light Mexican-Lakota coloring, which led to barely reddened nose on my part, and instead dived firmly into the pale Irish-Swedish side of our gene pool, which led to complete Rudolph noses and apple cheeks on their parts. I've been accused of adopting them all, and I'm beginning to wonder if that might be true; though who the hell would hallucinate labor? Four times?) Thing Two and I were left with Sam.

"Mom..."

"No, we can't have him in the house; we're renting and it's not allowed. Why don't you walk him down the road and see if he lives at one of the neighbors?"

"You're doing that answering before I ask the question thing again."

I waved that away--I'm a mom; it's what we do--and watched as she and Sam trudged down our road, where they found Sam's owner. Thing Two wilted. She had already had visions of Sam tucked up on blankie in a corner of her room, maybe playing with her yarn while she knitted, just like Muffy the Yarnslayer (scroll down to the last paragraph for the low-down on Muffy).

But what's more, Sam wilted. Though his owner was obviously a very kind man and very good to his pet, Sam did not want to go back into the yard with the other two dogs. He wanted to stay and play with his New Girl. It was touching, and bittersweet. The guy talked to Sam (who's other name is apparently Gus), he cajoled and wheedled and finally had to put an arm around Sam's neck and lead him away, tossing a, "Thanks for bringing him home, deah," over his shoulder to my daughter. She stood in the middle of the road and watched them go, not moving.

I went and met up with her, and arm around her, walked back home with her.


So it was a day of quiet accomplishment. Reading. Knitting. Chores turned Thing-Memories-Made time. Er, lines NOT practiced for show like I promised director I would so I would know whether or not I needed a one-one-one line run through (sorry, Sir Director, but I'll have time tomorrow). Blog posted (almost).

Four out of five is not bad, all in all.

Oh, and one other thing. A February thing. It seems only fitting that in the month of the Blogversary, I discovered that I was actually listed in a Blogs I Read list on a new blog called Stringin' Crazy! She does Tunisian crochet (which I want to do as well as her) and her embroidery, from what I saw, is freakin' to die for. I only wish mine were that good (yeah, I do that sometimes too--even people who craft both ways have occasional dalliances outside the yarn). And her Wednesday Musings made me laugh. I don't know, maybe I'm listed on other blog rolls out there, but that is the first I've ever seen and I was darned chuffed about it.

Snow days. They stand out, don't they?

The Blogversary

The wee little blog celebrated its one year birthday this month, and I have shown that by…

Um. Well. I haven’t shown it in any way, actually.

This has been an oddly not-much-knitting-or-crocheting month for me. There have been job worries; although my acceptance of an 11-month contract instead of a 12 was presented as “completely voluntary” it doesn’t take a genius to know which way the wind blows, especially when you're standing in gale force economic winds. So, I accepted and have until June to figure out how to make up the money I’ll be losing. There have been Things who saw fit to share the sickness love, taking their turns one week after another will new variations on each illness, instead of getting all done in one go (marathon few days of no sleep for mom is actually preferable to drawing it out over six weeks, let me tell you). And there have been things to think about and get through.

You know how it is. Sometimes life demands so much attention that you can arse up even single chains and stockinette stitch when you attempt them. When that happens to me, I find that it's best if I simply set the crochet hook or needles down.

It’s kind of lonely doing that. Most times, when things are off-kilter, there's nothing like shaping a granny square or knitting down a row to bring me back to myself. When I hit that land of thinking without thinking, working with my hands grounds me. This month, though, my focus has been too scattered. I've looked down at the yarn in my hands and realized I was making froggable moments, again and again and again. And wasn't even irritating when I did it. That's when I decided to just set things aside.

But, me being an incurable optimist (read totally naive idiot), I can't help but bounce back before I should; really, I know it's fashionable to languish more in these moments, but I'm sort of hopeless at it. I'll still have some worries and sadness with me, but it will be of the quiet sort that moves gently along with me and still lets me enjoy what I can.

We had a huge storm and beautiful amounts of snow. I'm getting out and meeting new people. I still have a job next year, unlike so many people who have been laid off. I was cast in two one-act plays and both are parts which will challenge me to try new things. Thing Four came and snuggled with me last Saturday morning, almost falling asleep against me, the way he did when he was a baby.

All these things have nothing to do with money or other worries, and all are great gifts. They are bringing things back into focus for me. They are making my hands feel like it's time to pick things up again.

As the month draws to a close, then, we here at Neglected Blogs are making a change. It’s going to be big. It’s going to be shocking.

Yes, it’s the uber how-late-can-you-get-the-feckin’-Christmas-&-Hanukkah-stuff-done extravaganza.

The snow zombies are about to return.

Stay tuned.