What Guilt?

That was a lovely weekend!  (I notice I use ‘lovely’ an awful lot.  Noted, and I doubt I’ll change it any time soon.  Lazy brain!)  Skein Lane Knitting Retreat.

Knitting, knitters, Tomales Bay, not even cold!  (I think I wore a sweater once, and took it off.  Shawl, yes.  Happy Grey Alpaca Shawl!)  Nancy Bush, Sally Melville, no dishes to wash.  Good times!    Windrush Farm, Black Mountain Artisans, and the wallet is a little lighter.

Nancy Bush and Sally Melville make an interesting combination of teachers, each coming from different places in knitting (translating knitting traditions for contemporary knitters, contemporary knitting for contemporary knitters).  Sunday morning, we had a few hours with both together answering questions.  Fascinating!  They’re both good teachers.  I happen to prefer Nancy Bush, but that’s because I’m fascinated by the traditional stuff (Estonian Lace!  I want more!).  I learned from both of them.  Now I just have to keep it all contained in my woefully small memory until I need it.  Ha!

Friday was chaotic, getting out.  And that’s all I have to say about that, other than that I made it in time to check in.  Phew!

I called home Friday evening.  (I had better cell coverage this year.  I wonder why?)  Talked to a very sad kid.  “I miss you, Mom.  I’m sad without you here.  Dad is driving me crazy.”  All in the sad voice.  When I called home Saturday, my husband told me he cried himself to sleep.  He wasn’t sure I should talk to the kid, but the kid wasn’t home yet from his birthday adventure.  Surprise for a friend’s birthday.  Ferry to SF, food at the Rainforest Cafe (I’m thankful I wasn’t there!), ferry back again.  I talked to him later.  He missed me still, but didn’t sound quite so pathetic.

Now he’s showing me how much he loves me!  Hugs and  Whine.  A lot of good whine.  Monday all the way home until after dinner.  Tuesday all the way home and getting ready for bed.  I feel so loved. 

Monday was exacerbated by an Incident at school.  When a teacher pulls me aside and says, “he really surprised me today,” I know we’re in trouble.  My sweet darling 2nd grader, in the middle of after school, said, “I’m going to break your fucking back!”  The teacher made sure to tell me he used the F word in context, so he knows how to use it.  That doesn’t bother me.  Other than that he was stupid enough to use the F word in school.  Not a school word!  What bothers me is the actual whole sentence.  Mean talk!  Bully talk!  The report is that he said it, the whole class went quiet, and he started crying, probably hiding in the corner.  On the way home, “Don’t tell Dad!”  “I don’t want to talk about it!”  Once he calmed down after dinner (amazing what food does for a person!), he told me he didn’t say fuck, but bruck.  So I talked at him a bit about how changing a couple letters doesn’t make it any better because people still hear it anyway.  And I talked at him about how what he said was talking like a bully.  And I talked at him again this morning about it, just for a minute.  I wonder if he heard anything I said?  Of course I told Dad.  But not in front of the kiddo, cause then we’d have to be serious, and I’ve already talked at him enough.  I told Dad I couldn’t scold him for osicon (basically potty mouth), and he laughed.  Cause he knows very well I’m worse.  And so is he.  We know where the kiddo picked up ‘the word.’  The threat, on the other hand, is not mine.  But he’s smart.  He knows how to put things together and build a better whole. 

And now I feel like finishing a few things.  Too bad I’m at work…

Good Title Here

Knitting Retreat on Tomales Bay starts tomorrow!

My to-get-done-before-I-leave list is growing by the minute.

Thank goodness I’m off work tomorrow.  But see above.

On the list:  buy ant bait for my car.  !!!  Grrr.

Oh, I can’t wait for my weekend to start!  I’ll turn off the guilt switch when I cross the Richmond Bridge.

It’s Raining! It’s Pouring!

Nobody here is snoring!

Really, no one in this house has ever snored.  In fact, if you are a regular snore-er, you won’t here.  True!  We should have our own infomercial!

I may be lying.

Wet Tuesday.  Heavy rain for NorCal.  I’m happy!  Especially since I can avoid the freeway easily most of the day.  Luckily, I finally bought myself a very long raincoat.  My legs stayed dry.  Ah, the simple pleasures.  Now I need rain gloves.  And a waterproof bag or two.  It would have been a perfect day to stay home in the quiet and ignore the dishes, curled up with a book or knitting.

Funny things today.  Driving home this evening from school (after school) pick up, the kiddo said, “I’m going to tell you a story.  You already know it.”  And he started telling me something.  I couldn’t quite hear him, so I turned up the volume.  On the radio.  That’s not attached to my child.  Oddly enough, it didn’t work, but it distracted us from the story.  (and I didn’t even have the radio turned on!  I think I’m running low on sleep.  Kiddo says, “It was very funny.”)

Got to see a good friend for a few minutes yesterday.  She reads and knits.  (what do we find to talk about?)  She’s working with a physical therapist, who saw her knitting while she waited for her appointment.  He suggested that she prop her elbows on pillows to help her shoulders.  (Imagine!  Giving a useful suggestion, instead of saying, “stop doing that.”)  I immediately thought that would be a great use for a nursing pillow.  Too bad the one I have lying around (if it still is and it may have left the house) is floppy.  I decided I need a new one before knitting retreat this weekend.  (Knitting Retreat!  This Weekend!)  My shoulder is mad at me.  Was my lower back, but the mad moved into the shoulder.  I hate hurting myself.  And I haven’t let myself knit as much as I want to.  Or play with the spindle as much as I want (and I’m trying to figure out something other than reaching up over my head.)  (Kiddo is rubbing my  shoulder right now.  So Nice!)  Couldn’t get to Target easily this week, but found myself near enough a baby/toy store in Rockridge.  The extra price tag is worth not driving to Albany when I don’t have time.  It was pouring rain when I parked.  Someone was paying the funny parking receipt machine.  Took a while.  I waited in the car.  Got out.  Hers was cancelled.  I put my money in, nothing doing.  Nuts!  But her money was in the coin return.  So I found $1.25.  Went to the store, saw her, and promptly returned her change.  (But I didn’t actually look for her, and I would have kept it, so not as virtuous as I could make myself sound.)  Then looked at the very expensive, only one style in stock, nursing pillow.  And another woman said she had a barely used one at home, just a few minutes away.  Darned if I didn’t get a free nursing pillow!  And she knows it’s for knitting/reading.  She was happy to get it out of the house.  I think I’ll be knitting a pair of lovely mitts and dropping them off for her soon.  I feel so lucky!

Then I took Hwy 13 through the rain and the fog, then down to my house for a minute and promptly got annoyed by my husband.  Whiplash!  Good thing I was on my way to see another patient.  Didn’t have time to get more annoyed.

Kiddo reminds me to say that when we got home, I started a fight with his Dad.  He needed annoying back.  I don’t think it worked.  Now we’re in the living room, using candles instead of lights.  Might as well enjoy the dark!  Might need to buy a few more.

Good Night!  Sleep Tight with Teddy!

Tuesday after Lambtown

We’re up!  We’re out!  We’re well-provisioned!  Pretty good for a Monday morning.  (And now it’s Tuesday!  We’re provisioning.)

The kiddo and I went to Lambtown on Saturday.  Lovely little show!  It was mostly a kid-directed day.  (Except when I dragged him protesting and crying and whining through the vendor building.)  Sheep dog trials!  Shearing contest!  An alpaca to pet!  Sheep to Shawl!  Jumpy House!  Teeny tiny train to ride!  We watched them unload sheep (for the shearing contest) from a trailer.  Classic clown car act.  (That must be all of them.  Nope, they didn’t unload the upper level yet!  Wow!  That’s a lot of sheep!)

Someday, I’d like to take a class or two.  Spend quiet time wandering through the vendors.  Sit with the Ravelry group for a minute.  Watch the sheep shows, the fleece shows.  But we still managed a relaxed long day, mostly happy for both of us.  I bought a Niddy Noddy.  We’re amused by the name.  Very amused!  (Heh Heh naughty knitting)  (6 year old amused)

Soccer Sunday morning.  Great cool weather, happy kids.  I didn’t knit a stitch on the kiddo’s Cleo sock.  But can’t say I watched much of the game.  It feels like Fall, right on schedule.  Cool, crisp mornings.  Less light.

I cooked all evening Sunday.  (and cleaned the bathroom – small victories!  Don’t look at the rest of the house.)  Made Roasted Squash, Pear, Ginger Soup from the cookbook Vegetable Soups by Deborah Madison.  Sounded good.  Smelled pretty good.  Lordy!  It’s great!  Surpassed my expectations!  It’s dessert, without being sweet.  And the house filled with the smells of roasting, well, see above.  And braised chicken legs.  And pumpkin muffins.  The brocolli salad was less successful.  Harsh raw garlic.  Not so good for lunch at work.  And roasted tomatoes.   I can cook a nice pile of food, not necessarily a meal to eat all at once, about once a week.  So I don’t feel so bad later in the week when I’m buyin lunch en la calle.

Time to Change Your Clothes!  Put on Your Shoes!  Grab a Jacket!  Really – grab a jacket!  It’s cold out there and your mother’s cold!  You need a jacket!

Sky

Morning sky on Tuesday – texture!  Usually high fog, sometimes clear.  But we could see the bumps and breaks in the clouds, and a bit of gold light coming through here and there.  The house is placed so we don’t get good sky views from inside.  Sometimes I go out to the back yard in the evenings (oops!  almost forgot to bring in the clothes again) and am surprised/amazed at the sunset.  

Morning sky today – clear and still.  Yesterday’s winds blew off the clouds?  No fog blanket, so chilly.  Probably warm now, but I’m glued to the computer (and not working as hard as I need to).

Driving down Foothill Blvd on a good sky day, I’m separated from that feeling of Great Expanse of Sky by the power lines back and forth over the road.  And driving through a shallow canyon of buildings.  Horizon’s not very far out.

I like the Richmond Bridge.  Feels like I’m driving into the sky.  And coming home, from Marin, feels like I’m in the sky at the very start of the bridge, just over the water.  And the sky and the water reflecting each other all around.  Different with a great orange moon, or a silver nickel of a moon.  Watching the moon path (instead of the cars ahead?  I’m driving!) across the water.

I meant to ramble about contrasts, but got started on the sky.  Most spectacular when full of contrast!  Which is how I got from one to the other. 

Funny work note.  Did an initial visit with a new patient yesterday.  I’ve never met anyone happier to have TB!  Dancing in her bed, screaming happy.  Wonder what they thought at the nurses’ station?  (She already knew TB was in the picture, already knew she was taking medications for TB, but still thought the ’spot on her lungs’ might be cancer.)  I don’t think her thrill will last, but nice for a change!  (speaking of contrasts)  No, she’s not particularly sick.

If I wait to add the photos…

I’ll never post a thing.  Which is pretty much what I’ve been doing.  Never not posting nothing at all.

I should tell a story, a sappy story, a tearjerker.  (But I don’t have one of those.)

Light’s changing.  I can’t count on light creeping in the window to remind me my alarm already went off.  I hope we’re not so hot.  Yesterday:  Hot.  Today:  Cold Winds Blowing.  Husband curled up on the couch in his cave, huddled under a blanket, with a big grin. Saturday we collected different tree seed pods.  Chestnut. Prickly Gum. Magnolia.  The back of the car is always full of interesting botanica.  Months ago, he threw in an armful of magenta bougainvillea blossoms picked up off the sidewalk.  (They’re still there, softly crunching under the backpack.)

We had the last apple off my little tree.  I think it had about 5 or 6 total, and my husband likes unripe fruit, so only two made it anywhere near maturity.  This last one he picked and ate (I finagled a bite).  He was in raptures over the flavor.  Maybe he’ll leave them longer next  year.  And maybe he won’t.  We’re feeding the local wildlife raisins.  I never managed to do anything with the grapes again this year, but they’re not going to waste.  Squirrels ate the peaches.  Something ate a possum outside the bedroom window.   Lovely thing to find in the morning.

Knitting news of note:  I put a zipper in the Orange Snakes (at the gates of hell)!  Left the buttons up the side, because he likes them like that.  And I cast on for a vest he can wear in school.  Am I nuts?  Do I not realize the poor chances he’ll wear it more than twice?  I already threatened I’d have to give the vest away if he doesn’t wear it.  Needs to be knit first.  And I finished the baby blanket!  It’s lovely, and I’d like it larger, but the baby was born the day I decided to bind off so I could finish it before the baby was born.  Too late.  But ends are in, it’s been washed, and the kid wants his own, just like it.  So do I.  I have yearnings to knit me a sweater.  But I should knit up a little alpaca something for Ham (the kiddo’s first best friend) cause he loves to hold alpaca garter stitch.  And his birthday’s this month.  But there’s the vest (sock yarn of course!  Cause it will be so Fast!).  And wool cashmere (nylon too) Cleo socks for the kiddo.  Sounds like I’m in desperate need of something on the needles for me!  That’s because I don’t tell the full story at once.  (Dogi vest, Noro triangle, blue socks)

Clothes to hang up in the cave. (yarn to ply, vest to knit, dishes to leave dirty)  Better a little post than no post at all.

Sometimes I make my own yarn

Not often, but I’m trying to work with my spindle more consistently.  A couple weeks ago, I spun and plied and washed this pretty little skein.  The back of the dining room chair makes a great skein winder, except for a little problem of the top being the widest point.

And I’ve got some more going. I’m working for consistency, not tiny-ness, and getting the hang of drafting.  And figuring it out ergonomically, so I’m not hurting myself anymore.  (damned week at the computer)

Just need to keep on going! It’s fun being a rank beginner. I have no expectations for a particular level of ‘good.’ 

Wool roving, from Mom, a bit of our personal history – that there roving is more than 20 years old.   gulp!

Quick! Go do a Survey!

About you and knitting!

Our friend the Knitting Linguist is thinking about knitting and personal identity, and fun stuff like that.  Do her a favor, and go do it here.  I had a good time thinking about knitting and why I do it and how I started.   Give her lots of words to analyze. 

Peter Pan was awesome!  The best yet!  We loved it!  In fact, we’re going again tonight.   What’s better than dinner and musical theatre with my boy?  He’s a great date.  For some reason, my husband wasn’t interested in going.  But that’s all right, because he’s a great couch date, especially when we’re watching a really silly novela (silly on purpose, even). 

And tomorrow we’re going to the playa fria.  The day’s adventures should include a stealth meeting with another knitter.  We’re meeting on the south end of the beach – the end near the big bird rock, not the end near the clinically insane surfers.  Show and tell in the cold wind!  And maybe even knitting together, if our fingers are warm enough.  I can’t wait!

Sometime I should pick up the house.  The dust elephants alone qualify this as an undeclared emergency.  They’re stealing legos.  We can’t have that!

And just to slowly come up-to-date, a photo of mitts to give to a co-worker.  Cascade Venezia (wool and silk), bigger than worsted.  Orange!

\

(lots! of! exclamation! points!)

Free Range Chickens Again

I don’t really believe it, but now ‘they’ say different.  I will no longer be scrambling to finish these dratted forms up this weekend!  But I must, must, must continue working on them, because they have to go away sometime.  Too bad the motivation is so much less.

What is the history of the phrase ”chickens coming home to roost?”  Who has an OED handy?  I refuse to look it up on Wikipedia.

Let me tell you about last weekend.  I’m pretty sure it was a lovely weekend, but it’s been a busy week and I don’t remember most of it.  I think we hung out with friends one day?   Yeah!  Grilled hot dogs!  And I decided to go through my yarn, starting with the yarn tucked into my bedroom closet before it heads upstairs to the real yarn closet (Not the kid’s closet – he doesn’t own it!).  I’ve been seeing a m*th or two around, every once in a while, often enough and recently enough to get through my denial filters. 

I had a wonderful time!  (sort of)  I touched all my yarn.  Every single skein and ball.  Except for the ones attached to ‘active’ projects around the house.  I found m*ths, but I’m lucky.  They were chewing up some ancient orange wool given to me out of someone’s closet.  No, the dreaded insects didn’t come in on it, I’m pretty sure.  But now it’s in the garbage.  I discovered evidence of earlier m*th life cycles under the labels of the little cones of weaving cotton.  None of it eaten, but they liked those tight, dark spaces.  All in the garbage.  And one bag of roving, because I saw one small, non-m*th insect in the bag, and, well, it had to go too.  Could have been so much worse!  And now it’s all bagged up again, with lavender tucked in.  Great timing!  The lavender bushes in the front yard didn’t mind a little trim in back.

My husband saw the room mid yarn check.   Surprising how big a pile can look, when it’s all pulled out.  Or more accurately – surprising how much can be put away tidily, out of sight in the closet.  ”Did you buy all of it, or is it gifts?”  “Some of both.”  And that was the end of that conversation.  (Good thing the bills get paid and the child is clothed and fed.  And that I’m the one with the steady, good-paying job with benefits.)

It might be about half gift, half bought.  I have a few sweaters and vests in there.  And a lot of socks and baby sweaters.  But very little red.  I’d like to do a red scarf for OFA, which is why I now have some red Cascade Venezia – it’s soft (merino and silk) and sturdy and a great colour.  But first I’m finishing some orchid mitts (ends and blocking!), and that baby blanket.  Have I showed you either of those yet?  We may go right to finished photos at this rate.  And I really want to get working with more of Mom’s handspun.  There’s a sweater or two in there, or some great shawls…

It’s been a dramatic week.  And tomorrow we go to Peter Pan.  I can’t wait!

The Chickens Came Home to Roost

What chickens have to do with reaping what we sow, I don’t know. 

I procrastinate.  I finding charting tedious.  Thus, I am very behind.  One of the computer systems we use for charting is being upgraded a week from today.  All forms done before 7-31-09 will be read-only, whether completed or not.  Guess what I’m doing today?  And this weekend?  And all next week?  And every evening?  

We found this out yesterday.  None of us are happy.  Many of my coworkers are barely behind in charting, and they are probably even more upset than I am.   (I think it’s impossible to have charting completely up-to-date and actually get everything done, but some of us are closer than others.)  I’m upset, but I know I’m in such bad shape because of my previous actions (inactions).  Fatalistic sigh here.

You notice that I’m posting.  And, oddly enough, I put in a good number of rows on that log cabin baby blanket last night (after putting in maybe an hour of work, so I’m not so terrible).

Just for a minute.  Break’s over!