this’ll be the last WiP shot for my newest sweater: next stop, FO!
Don’t forget the giveaway in progress — see this post for details, and leave a comment there.
I’m very nearly done with my Laurayana sweater (the pattern was a birthday gift from Laura, thank you!), and I’ve been doing finishing as I’ve gone along. I pause and weave in ends as I go along, I block each piece as it’s completed, and I’ve sewn together the shoulder seams and knitted the finishing detail. I’m halfway through the 2nd sleeve (first is finished and blocked), so when I finish the second sleeve, while it’s blocking I’ll sew in the first and seam the side seams. Then, voila! Nearly ready to wear.
the neck finishing detail is 3 rows of stockinette, designed to curl and show the purled edge. It's a nice bit of texture to complement the deeply-textured front panel.
Here’s an FO shot of my cute little hat, my Berry Welty. You know it’s got a blue/purple hem facing, which is my little secret, and why I’m smiling so:
fits like a dream, and oh-so-warm. Thank you for the pattern, Kelly!
The next time I show my Laurayana, I’ll be wearing it. 
you’re part of the mud that gets to sit up, Lori! Don’t forget that.
First, don’t forget the giveaway in progress — see this post for details, and leave a comment there.
I’m not quite sure why, but I’m feeling off, kind of disconnected, more blah than blue but hanging out in that neighborhood. Maybe one reason is that I won’t get to be with my daughters and their families for Christmas in Austin, a crying-worthy fact that aches me. I suspect that’s the bulk of the reason for my mood, since even writing that sentence made me well up with tears. But I’m usually pretty good at scrambling around and setting things up in a way to be happy with not getting what I want……so I plan to have video chats with them on Christmas, and we’re planning to all be together for Christmas 2013, come what may. That helps.
I’ve been trying to plug into things I have to feel grateful for, to help me feel better. And you know, sometimes that’s just very hard to do. It isn’t that I can’t see them and count them — I do, and can. It’s more that they’re bled of color, or something. The warmth that comes from them doesn’t reach my skin. This feeling is one reason I wanted to do the giveaway, actually; I know the wonderful feeling that comes from giving, so I’m trying to do it in all parts of my life, which of course includes y’all.
As I made my french press coffee this morning, I did each step mindfully, trying to be present for the sound of grinding the beans, the scratchy sound of the kettle coming to a boil, the heavy feeling of stirring the wet grounds, the thick smell as I pressed the plunger, the rich taste in my mouth. I breathe, feel it fill my lungs, I pay attention. I listen to the sounds — the compressor in the refrigerator, the kids running down the sidewalk, the click of my fingers on the keyboard. I’m here.
This morning I woke up without the mean headache that tormented me all day yesterday — grateful! Yeah, that one made me wake up with a smile, but it didn’t reconnect me to anything beyond itself. Today is a busy day, going all over town up and down, east and west, ending with my book club meeting tonight, on the east side…..and it’s a gorgeous sunny day, not the rainy day that had been forecasted. Grateful! It rained yesterday [hence the headache] but today, my get-around day, it’s glorious. Oh so grateful.
But as I’ve been writing this, a thought started creeping in: wait a minute. This is a day of my life. This, right now, this is one of a numbered days of my life. I get to have this day (weird, the sun literally came through a cloud just then ). I am lucky beyond measure to have this day.
As Steve Martin says, no one can be sad when they hear a banjo play. And if one banjo is good, 5 banjos are EVEN BETTER!
Enjoy this day of your life, it’s a very precious thing! (edit: ha! a friend of mine just wrote a great post for Huffington on this general topic.)
leave me a comment! it’s giveaway time.
I think it’s time for a little giveaway: this is post 601, I have received 3030 comments, it’s almost December, I have a bunch of subscribers, and I really like you. I really, really like you. Friday morning (Dec 2) I’ll announce the winner, so just leave a comment by Thursday at midnight and you’ll be entered. It’s easy.
Here’s the giveaway prize: a skein of Artyarns Cashmere 5, which is worsted weight, 100% cashmere.
I'll ship it anywhere, so don't worry if you live outside the US
I know at least one person who loves purple (hi Kty!), but even if you don’t, it’s a beautiful shade. Good luck!
p.s. — I’m not responding to comments, so as to keep my own grubby mitts out of the comment list, but yeah, I’m sure…..I had two skeins and made a gift with one, so I know just how gorgeous the yarn is, but I’m ready to let this one go. And if I gave away something I hated, that wouldn’t seem much of a giveaway!
lots of making in my household lately. and making = happy.
Really, I’m like you (if you’re a knitter): I get the urge to cast on all the time, I like to have multiple projects going for the inevitable boring slogs that hit each project, I have queue overload and new project lust. See? Just like you. But for some weird reason, I’ve recently been unwilling to work on more than one project at a time. I want to finish my Laurayana sweater before I cast on Audrey in Silt, thinking I’d rather finish one and wear it than have two going and not get to wear either one for much longer. Weird. Of course, I did pause for a bit to knock out the little hat, but that was because I needed a hat.
But I’m spotting a trend here, hatched with my Ozma’s Delight sweater: the contrasting hem.
that's my berry red hat with the blue/purple hem facing, and my blue/purple sweater with the cherry red hem facing!
I didn’t set out to do this! It just kind of happened. It’s too warm to wear the hat yet, but I’m ready when the chill comes. And as for my Laurayana sweater, the front and back are finished, one sleeve is finished, and the 2nd sleeve is half done. Then I just have to sew the shoulders together, pick up and knit a very few rows to finish the neck (stockinette, so they do a little tight curl), and then sew in the sleeves and sew up the sides. Sewing pieces together is always a bit of magic, and I really kind of like doing it. It’s careful work, close handwork, just my kind of thing.
So the soup-making spree is a memory now, and we have quarts and quarts (and gallons and gallons) of amazing soup in the freezer, ready for the winter. In addition to all that, my husband also made a beautiful batch of gravlax, which we’ve been enjoying.
that's 18 quarts of homemade cabbage soup. I KNOW! 18 QUARTS! and we also have french onion, probably 8 quarts.
here's the cabbage soup, for a close-up. it's thick with yummy cabbage, and shreds of brisket, and chunks of tomato. and the broth is a lovely sweet-sour flavor, deepened (of course) by the complexity of his homemade beef stock.
it's hard to really appreciate this, since it just looks like a piece of salmon; he scraped/rinsed off the salt/sugar/fresh dill blanket that it cured in for a couple days. sliced paper-thin, and either eaten plain (my way) or on pumpernickel bread (his way), it's so fresh and delicious. tastes like the sea, kind of. the delicious salmon sea.
So yeah, it’s been a knitty-foodie several days around here, punctuated by long walks in the park, marathon Breaking Bad watching, and naps and cups of tea and writing. Doesn’t that sound heavenly……..
The falling leaves / Drift by the window / The autumn leaves / All red and gold
I see your lips / The summer kisses / The sunburned hands / I used to hold.
Since you went away / The days grow long… / And soon I’ll hear / Old winter songs
But I miss you most of all / My darling, when autumn leaves start to fall…
The show-off part of autumn is winding down and now we’re in the workman part of the season. Everywhere I look, I see we’re starting to seriously get ready for the brace of winter. Trees are getting bare, the Christmas tree stands are open on the corners, the air has that brisk edge to it that makes you go wait a minute….maybe I need my coat. And we will soon be having lots of soup, courtesy of my husband’s luscious homemade beef stock.
40 lbs. marrow bones post-roasting, pre-simmering. current status: STOCK!
Today he’ll be caramelizing 10 pounds of onions for the french onion soup, and chopping god knows how many pounds of cabbage (20, I learned!) for the cabbage soup. I don’t know if you can tell how giant that stock pot is, on the left, but we have three pots about that size now, filled with a very light, rich beef stock. YUM. One thing is for sure, my house is going to smell great this afternoon.
In addition to relaxing and eating a really luscious meal yesterday, I got some knitting done. I don’t have a good hat, and my ears get very cold very quickly, and then I get a terrible earache. Kelly gifted me a hat pattern for my birthday, so I cast on yesterday and nearly finished — will do so today. It’s A Hat for Eudora, but I call it Berry Welty.
Berry Welty -- my birthday hat! That's a peek of madelinetosh DK in iris, for the hem. Sometimes you just need a hat, you know?
Yesterday we also took a nice walk — where else, Riverside Park. I noticed something kind of weird, but it’s just the schizo aspect of this part of autumn:
leaves ahead of me.....
no leaves behind me.
So happy fragmented Friday to you; I hope you are enjoying this late autumn day, whatever you’re doing. Here’s a Thanksgiving poem that’s really not about Thanksgiving:
Home For Thanksgiving
The gathering family
throws shadows around us,
it is the late afternoon
Of the family.
There is still enough light
to see all the way back,
but at the windows
that light is wasting away.
Soon we will be nothing
but silhouettes: the sons’
as harsh
as the fathers’.
Soon the daughters
will take off their aprons
as trees take off their leaves
for winter.
Let us eat quickly—
let us fill ourselves up.
the covers of the album are closing
behind us.
that’s right, i’m droooling….droooooooling.
them's marrow bones, friend
My husband trekked out to Queens Chinatown to buy 40 pounds of marrow bones (half the price he could get them in Manhattan, so well worth the trip!). He does this every late fall/early winter, though I don’t think he used to get 40 pounds. It’ll eventually produce the most lovely, delicate beef stock that’ll find its way into his drool-worthy french onion soup, and his hearty cabbage soup, and even a rich lentil soup studded with the leftover ham from our Thanksgiving feast.
Today, though, is the kind of smelly day, though it carries hints of the great tastes to come. He’s been roasting the bones to get them that rich mahogany color, then he’ll simmer them for lots of hours. It’s good to do this when the weather is so cold because he can set the giant pots outside overnight so the fat can solidify and then be lifted off in a huge thick disc, leaving just the delicate stock. And oh my is it good. His french onion soup has so much flavor, you’d never ever think it was nothing but this stock and caramelized onions. No other flavors, and none needed — his stock is so rich and delicious. He makes his own croutons for that soup, and he uses the best cheese of course, but the star is the stock.
It’s cold and raining, and I’m about to head out for my downtown journey. As Laura said in her last comment, I hope I at least see something fun or strange, some great NY story! At the least, I’ll leave here with daydreams of soup floating around in my head.
i don’t usually do WiP Wednesdays, but I’m in a rush and this was easy!
Happy Thanksgiving Eve! It’s gridlock alert day here in Manhattan, and we’re all encouraged to use public transport. Since I’ll be using it a lot today, I dread the crowds, but what to do. If you’re busy making pies and all that jazz, I wish I were hanging out with you.
Thanks to my old-lady-can’t-sleep deal, I’ve been up since 4am. Whee! I spent some of that time making progress on my Laurayana sweater, which is coming along beautifully. The back is finished, and I’m just a few inches from finishing the front. The sleeves will go quickly, so I should have another new sweater in a week or two!
the back (on the right) has been blocked and the change in the fabric is WONDERFUL; it doesn't really have that underarm lump as it appears, on the right side of the back. The pattern up the center of the front is fun to work, waving ribs.
I was a little worried about the hem facing; first of all, it’s odd to face a ribbed hem, but also, I was worried that the bright red would show. I wanted that to be my private treat. When I blocked the back, turning up the hem gave me a bit of relief. Even when it’s not stitched down, it’s thoroughly hidden.
As for Audrey in Silt, I haven’t cast on yet; it has a very deep ribbed section of twisted rib, and I’m trying to think about how committed I am to that twist. I’m thinking the answer is not so much.
Lots of work to get done today, and a meeting with a client this morning followed by back-to-back meetings in the afternoon. Good thing I woke up at 4am.
don’t try to defend them, it won’t do you any good. i promise.
These are the minor leagues, the bush leagues, the small potatoes things, but somehow they still incite such confusing rage in me that I want to kill someone — anyone, really.
- Morrissey’s voice
- Tori Amos’s voice (and whole self, no idea why)
- Don DeLillo’s writing (especially his dialogue)
I fear this list is kind of like liver, in that people will say “Oh, but you’ve never heard this song / read this book / tried my liver recipe,” to which I’ll respond by gritting my teeth and trying not to choke the person saying it.
I don’t know what it is about Morrissey or Tori Amos that makes me so crazy, but it’s immediate. One of their songs can be on in the background, far far away, too indistinct even to recognize, and I’ll just be filled with rage and won’t know why, until I realize. That singer. The only of DeLillo’s books I [tried to] read was White Noise, and I went into it with excitement and hope, thinking I’d have a new writer to love and covet, I’d read all those books, so great! But it read with so many false notes — people don’t talk that way! Everything about it annoyed me to death.
There are some writers I enjoy despite their writerly flaws; Philip Roth, for instance, can’t end a book to save his life. But I love to read Philip Roth, and just grit my way through the lame endings of his books. I’ll read him anyway. Pynchon grates, at many points, but I’ll deal. Rushdie’s fantastical stories and his lush sentences sometimes cloy and make me want a glass of icy cold water, to cut through, but boy I’ll read his grocery list, whatever.
Right now I’m reading Eugenides’ new novel The Marriage Plot; I haven’t ever been really moved by Eugenides’ work, and this one is no different. His intense fascination with the female experience doesn’t do much for me, maybe because I have enough of my own. What I want to be reading is my collection of nonfiction essays by Joan Didion, but there’s only so much time in the day. Instead, I’m reading [for work] a collection of brief essays by a fascinating Kenyan man, about his life. He’s no Joan Didion, but then again he’s no Don DeLillo.
Reading anything good? Or something/someone that makes you murderous? Either way, I’d love to hear about it!
imagine: writing, so warmly, while sipping my motherfucking coffee. Hell yeah.
Well, a couple new things coming in (which means a couple old things need to go out — it’s the too-little-space game, kids!), but I think with this my birthday extravaganza winds to a close. And a fine extravaganza it was.
This wasn’t really a birthday present, but coming when it did, I get to lump it in that category. It’s also — and primarily — an encouraging present, a thoughtful gift. Knowing of my writing pursuits, Marnie sent me this adorable mug, which is now my This Is The Only Mug I Need mug.
I'm trying! (courtesy of Marnie, via Rumpus.net). As a grammarian and language nazi, I especially appreciate the period at the end of that sentence.
And then last night, in addition to being treated to a very lovely dinner (fancy bistro food, ooh la la! souffle au fromage pour moi, et vin blanc), my friend Temma gave me a high tech shirt, which I happen to be [warmly] wearing as I write:
from the Uniqlo store....does anyone know how to pronounce that? Uniklo?. Anyway, mine is white, and will be great under all my sweaters!
So thus endeth the celebration of birthday #53. Fifteen long, lovely days it dragged out — one more than a fortnight! Thanks to Marnie and Temma, you delight me with your sweet thoughtfulness.
xoxoxo
p.s. This makes me giggle like a schoolboy:
i think the answer is yes.
And Roseanne Barr has some wonderful, fabulous things to say about menopause, including the fact that you only get old if you’re lucky. I hope I’m lucky in that way. So far so good!
in which I recount my history as a sweater knitter
Somehow I have become a sweater girl, knitting them almost exclusively. I’m thoroughly surprised by this, but think it’s primarily due to a couple things: (1) my friend Kelly, who inspires me with her sweaters, and (2) a few successes. Here is my sweaterography:
- Peasy – successful on all counts (though now it’s big, since I’ve lost weight, and it’s not the most flattering style on me, I now know.) Love the yarn (Rowan Felted Tweed) and would definitely use it again.
- Dark & Stormy — successfully knitted but unsuccessfully sized. Will be frogging. Love the yarn (madelinetosh vintage) and didn’t have huge problems with varying colors, but the FO is heavy. Very, very heavy. And that’s probably one reason it grew a couple sizes in blocking (and yes, I swatched and blocked.)
- Mondo Cable Cardi — successfully knitted but the yarn sucked, to be frank. Madelinetosh merino let me down in every way possible. The colors were so variable between skeins it was shocking; the yarn base itself varied wildly from skein to skein; and it turned into a giant pill within minutes of finishing it. Fail, but not because of my knitting. This one really put me off madelinetosh yarns.
- Featherweight Cardi — ding ding ding! We have a winner. This one was a win in every possible way, and I wear it a lot. I enjoyed the yarn a lot (Spirit Trails Fiberworks, clotho) and would use it again.
- Wintry Mix — ding ding ding!! A second big winner! I wear this a lot. Berroco Blackstone Tweed is a luscious yarn, and so far it’s holding up well.
- Vodka Gimlet — ding ding ding DING! The biggest winner of them all, I struggle every day to decide whether to wear this, or my Wintry Mix. The yarn is amazing (Plucky Knitter Primo Worsted) but trying to get it is an exercise in such frustration that I probably won’t use it again, to my endless disappointment.
Laurayana, sweater front
ready to roll -- madelinetosh pashmina, in siltwash
good grief. two stitches forward and three rows back.
Last night I finished knitting the back of my lovely Laurayana sweater. I was watching a movie at the time and didn’t have the needles I needed to cast on one of the sleeves, as I’d planned, so I just cast on the front. Everything I needed was at hand, so I thought I’d just get it going and do the sleeve today.
- Cast on, knit knit knit. Figure out the transition to the pattern, ok, knit knit knit.
- Along the way, a few stitches tinked. OK, for some reason, a lot of stitches tinked.
- A couple times, an error noticed two rows below, stitch dropped down and repaired. Look at me!
- Oops! Was supposed to begin shaping at 3″ from the turning ridge. Noticed it at 3-1/2″, figured it would be ok anyway. Knit knit knit.
- Several rows in, suddenly noticed that the ribbing just above the turning edge is wonky; along the center design panel, on the right, it didn’t end with k2 so what came above just kind of hung there. HMMM. Ugly. Double-checked the pattern, yep, it’s a mistake in the pattern. HMMM. Ugly.
- Knit a row. Ponder. Maybe no one will notice.
- Purl a row. Ponder. Yeah, no. It’s ugly. Am I a sloppy knitter, or a careful one?
- Frog down to the turning row, slip stitches back on the needle (semi-wonkily, but fixed as I knitted the first row, turning the stitches appropriately).
- Finish that row, realize I didn’t resume the ribbing after the center panel. Tink back to the marker and knit the ribbing….get to the last 3 stitches, oops, must’ve made a mistake in my 2×2 ribbing. Yep, back at the very beginning. Tink tink tink. Re-rib.
argh.
Now I’m watching The Third Man and “knitting.” Since it’s going so badly — so ‘wonkily’ — I’m trying to decide: should I put this down and do the sleeve? Maybe that’ll be the remedy for wonkiness. Should I get out the swift and ball up my siltwash and do those swatches? Maybe that’ll be the remedy for wonkiness. I already tried a brisk walk in the lovely park, a coffee at Starbucks, and I stopped at the store for a beautiful bottle of wine, for later. None of that seems to be ridding me of my wonkiness. Just one of those days, I guess.
Do you have a remedy for times like this? I’m all ears.
Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. ~Camus
Fragment #1: We sleep with our windows wide open, and last night the temperatures hovered just above freezing. That’s such heavenly sleeping, when it’s cold outside the blankets and you’re huddled underneath in a bubble of warmth. Cold head, warm body, great sleep. Even I slept last night; my nights are normally like this: fall asleep wake up…is it late enough yet that I can reasonably get up? 1am, nope, try to go back to sleep. wake up…is it late enough yet that I can reasonably get up? 1:45, nope, try again. wake up…is it late enough yet that I can reasonably get up? 2:10, nope, try again. wake up…is it late enough yet that I can reasonably get up? 3:20, nope, try again. I try to at least make it until 4am, but if I can wait until 5 to get up, that’s a late night of sleep.
Last night I slept straight through, from 11pm to 7am this morning. Those of you who sleep like I do, give me a hallelujah! And amen, sisters.
When I was getting out of bed, my husband shouted from the living room — something like “oh, you’ll want to take a picture of this!” So I scurried in and grabbed my camera in an effort to capture the brilliant morning sun on the tree outside my window.
it's like the tree was the light source
Really so much more breathtaking than the photo reveals. Cameras are great for some things, but they miss so much.
Fragment #2: I eat very well, and mindfully. I’m trying to eat for my bones, eat for my muscles, eat to minimize inflammation, eat for general health. I don’t eat white flour (at all, really) or sugar (much), I don’t eat processed stuff. I eat a lot of vegetables and fruit, which is easy because I love it. We have so much wonderful food available in our neighborhood, with fresh markets on the corners and fruit vendors on the street. And a bite of very dark chocolate every day — it’s for my health! REALLY! (No, really.) But now and then life also is enriched by a treat…..made into a ‘treat’ because it’s special and unusual and rare. This morning I had to go to the Post Office to pick up a package (restraining myself from going off on a rant here), and I passed the new Crumbs Bakery that just came to my neighborhood. I passed it on the way to the Post Office and it registered hmm…maybe on my way back… So yes, on my way back home I decided today was a good day for a treat. If you’re going to do it, do it right!
treat for me, as a reward for having to deal with the US Post Office.
this ain't no hostess cupcake.
It was DELICIOUS. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and slowly, and with lingering relish.
Fragment #3: Silt wash. My Audrey in Unst will be brown, the gorgeous silt wash colorway. Today I am doing a manuscript evaluation, which means I can knit while I read. I won’t be doing the swatches for Audrey while I read, that’s too focused, so I’ll finish the back piece of my Laurayana and get going on a sleeve. Back, sleeve, front, sleeve, that’s my plan. Then tonight I’ll swatch Audrey. Yippee!!
Happy Friday y’all. Here’s to sunlit trees and chocolate treats. And a good night of sleep.
man. I don’t know what to do here. I want them both, I want them all, I want more time, I want more hands. Help?
I’m working like a dog and not getting much knitting time, but that doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about knitting. Of course. (Note to writers: if you find yourself writing “needless to say,” then you didn’t need to say it. Cut it out.) ANYWAY, I’ve been daydreaming about sweaters. It’s cold outside. The rain today is supposed to turn to a bit of snow — nothing that will accumulate, just a bit of a mess — and I’ve got sweater-knitting fever.
I’m plowing forward on my Laurayana, up past the armhole shaping on the back and should finish that piece pretty soon. Maybe another 2″ of knitting, more or less. But Cascade 220 is workhorse-y, right? It’s great, it’s reliable, it’s warm, it’s standardized, it shows the stitches beautifully, but it’s not fancy. And I find that I’m wanting to alternate workhorse yarn knitting with fancy yarn knitting. I have my adorable Scarpetta ready to roll, since my luscious madelinetosh lace (in sumptuous fig) arrived a few days ago, but it’s a very lightweight sweater, with short sleeves, and mama’s cold. (Not really, we have the hounds of hell heat, but it’s cold outside, anyway!) I think I’ll hold off on Scarpetta until February.
Now, though, I think I’m going to pair the popular Audrey in Unst pattern with my madelinetosh pashmina, in mineral. Yes, I realize it’s another variation of green, coming on the heels of my Wintry Mix and my Vodka Gimlet, but y’all. How can I resist.
madelinetosh pashMINA people - colorway: mineral
I also have pashmina in a gorgeous brownish color, silt wash:
gorgeous, right?
I could get a lot of wear out of a sweater in that color, too. What do y’all think? Which color? I have three skeins of each, which is enough to complete the Audrey, which is supposed to be a great knit. SO: green? or brown?
such a thrill to be able to knit and read at the same time!
I’m paid to read and write all day long (yay! [but sometimes ugh]), and now and then I can read and knit for pay. I know, so lucky. When I’m actually working in the manuscript, editing someone’s words, my hands are on the keyboard and that’s that. But when I’m just reading someone’s manuscript and giving them my feedback on it, I can knit at the same time. Not only are manuscript evaluations my favorite thing to do because I’m good at it, they’re also my favorite because of the knitting time. Yesterday I read a manuscript and made some headway on my Laurayana sweater. I’m about an inch away from beginning the armhole shaping on the back:
the back, with shaping darts -- of course I had to do extra shaping for my waist, as always
that hem facing is madelinetosh DK, in tart. so tarty, so pretty! It won't be visible at all, since this is a pullover, but I know it's there.
Unfortunately for me and my knitting time, the next run of work is editing, not evaluation, and I have so much it’s stressing me out, waking me up at 1am. In fact, I got up at 1 this morning to get some work done. So this rate of progress will come to a halt for now, but it sure was fun!
like Van Morrison says: Put a smile on my face, get back in the human race, on a golden autumn day.
It’s one of those gorgeous, gorgeous fall days that make me so thrilled I live in this part of the world. We went out to enjoy the weather and the foliage (and the nice New Yorkers, who are all as happy-seeming as we are!), and my sub-mission was to take some photos of my newest sweater in the wild. Also, there was a 4-block green market near the Museum of Natural History that was a likely source of apple cider and cider donuts, and to be honest, that was the primary point of the excursion for me. Unfortunately, there were no donuts….boo….you know how it is when you get your mouth set for something. After that disappointment, we walked a couple blocks to that other park — Central Park. Since Riverside Park is my backyard, I tend to forget about Central Park. I should not do that.
central park, so moody
central park, so artistic
central park, such a destination
central park, so dreamy
And now, without further ado, here it is: my version of Thea Colman’s Vodka Gimlet, which I named Ozma’s Delight (my rav project page here). The yarn is Plucky Knitter Primo Worsted, which is merino and cashmere with a soupçon of magic.
my sweet, sweet Ozma Delight. I'll be wearing this one to death.
what's that behind you? yeah, that old trick worked on me.
There isn’t one thing I’d change about the sweater. I’m very very long-waisted, so I had to add a few inches before I did the waist detail; unfortunately, the sweater grew a bit so the detail doesn’t hit me at my waist. Fortunately, I still think it’s amazing-looking. I love everything about it, including the 6″ of ribbing at the cuffs. Of course you can’t see the orange hem that’s hidden on the inside, but you’ve seen that before, a few posts ago.
I figured out the details for my Laurayana sweater, so I’ve cast on and am working away. Knitting + reading + cups of Lady Gray tea = very happy me.
busy, busy, busy. getting shit done. my kind of gorgeous day!
It’s a STUNNING day outside — as soon as I finish this, I’m heading out into it. I’ve been so busy this morning, I’m just beaming. I woke up kind of early, drank some tea and my morning slug of Mighty Maca Greens, ate a few dried figs, took a long shower and tended to all manner of grooming, baked my husband a batch of crumbly buttery oatmeal-apple bars, got my green sweater blocking (FO photo to come asap! Finished knitting it last night, can’t wait for it to dry….), and did my first swatch for my next sweater, which I’ve dubbed Laurayana (gift from Laura + pattern name Ayana = obvious!).
I’ve stepped outside my normal range of colors here. I tend to wear deeply saturated colors, and I don’t really wear purple. I don’t have anything against it, it’s just not a color I’ve chosen. So here, it’s a pale lavender color, kind of dusty lavender. I like the color, love the pattern, and hope by the transitive and multiplicative properties of knitting it turns out to be a sweater I adore. I do like the fit of Amy Herzog’s patterns, so it’s a likely bet.
the color is called Montmartre, Cascade 220 Heathers
We’re running errands this afternoon, some shopping in NJ, sushi for dinner, a busy day for us. When I’m home later this evening, I think I’ll cast one for the adorable hat pattern Kelly gave me, because I just happen to need a hat. What do you know about that.
oh, y’all. i love y’all.
This is always my post-birthday caveat: I don’t go on and on about my birthday for reasons having to do with getting presents. I go on and on about it because I’m overjoyed to celebrate my life, a year past, a year ahead. When I was a kid, of course, it was about the presents, but at some point you really have the things you want (or can get them) so it’s not about stuff.
I thought about titling this post “the kindness of [not] strangers” but realized that you who I’ve met through my blog are more than [not] strangers. The feeling of warmth I get whenever we interact, the things I know about you — even if it’s just your most recent finished object, the things you know about me, the anxiety I feel if something is not going well for you, the comfort I feel from you if something is not going well for me, all that together made me ditch the post title, even though I liked it for itself.
This birthday was the best one I’ve had in the longest time, I can’t even remember. It’s not like it was filled with amazing once-in-a-lifetime activities, it was just truly wonderful, filled with connections to people I love, words from daughters that made me cry and feel so loved, time spent in a beautiful day. And in the midst of all that, I received a lot of sweet, thoughtful gifts that speak volumes to the generosity and kindness of the givers. You’ll be seeing some of these things again in future posts, I guarantee!
a cherry Shaker box, from my husband (and filled with yarn already)
lovely Parisian notebooks from Kty, whose birthday is today! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KTY!! My favorite living Parisian, by far. Coincidentally, the day these arrived in the mail, I'd spent the morning poking around bookstores and stationery stores looking for a new notebook for my purse. I found a couple but they weren't quite right, so I put them back and decided to look another time.
the pattern for Semele, a great scarf, a gift from Sara at Wool Durham (I'll call the project Triple S....Sara's Semele Scarf). I'm using my malabrigo sock yarn for this one, in a great orange colorway called terra cotta.
the pattern for Amy Herzog's Ayana sweater, from Laura, which I'll knit with a yarn in my stash that's also in Laura's stash, coincidentally, in the same colorway! I like that.
a perfect hat pattern, from Kelly -- A Hat for Eudora (because of the welts, cute name). I think I'll use my madelinetosh vintage, in baltic, leftover from my D&S which was a gift from Kelly last year. Nice.
the pattern for Scarpetta, by Kirsten Johnstone -- a second gift from Kelly. I HAD to buy yarn for this one .....
tosh lace, colorway: fig -- rich and gorgeous. Scarpetta will be gorgeous in this color!
And then one of my dearest friends gave me an Amazon gift certificate, which I used to buy Joan Didion’s We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live, and Anna sent me The Arrival, a graphic novel by Shaun Tan.
Also incoming in the past week was a cowl I won on Andrea’s blog (Life on Laffer, check her out if you don’t already follow her!):
cowl, won from Andrea at Life on Laffer -- heavy, luxurious fabric!
My problem, with all this great incoming stuff, is the oldest one in the knitter’s book: WHAT TO CAST ON FIRST??
autumn flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing to stay — Mary Oliver
There’s a good reason Hollywood shoots so many wistful movies in autumn in New York; we’re at our best, this time of year. The cooler air makes the city’s summer smells disappear, we’re less snappy and cranky this time of year, the less-appealing animal life scampers away from sight on their little rat feet, and most importantly, our thousands of trees put on their show. Usually, the foliage is a bit more beautiful upstate, but this year since Hurricane Irene goofed up the Catskills’ autumn show, our trees are at least as beautiful, if not more so. The trees aren’t as thickly-leaved as they might’ve been, since we had that freak snowstorm a couple weeks ago, but it’s still quite beautiful.
the glorious earthy red of a sumac, always takes my breath away
the sidewalk at the edge of the sidewalk
there's an enormous part of the park below the street level, down at the level of the West Side Highway. The light's very different down there; it reminded me of a di Chirico painting
I never ever EVER get tired of this view. It's everything an urban park should be.
all the lights were on with this one
this guy was quite small; there was a GIANT cardinal in Katie's backyard, remember, Katie?
As always, Mary Oliver has a beautiful poem celebrating this particular glory:
Fall Song
Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,
the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back
from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere
except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle
of unobservable mysteries – roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This
I try to remember when time’s measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn
flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay – how everything lives, shifting
from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.
Good job, trees.
Tonight the music seems so loud / I wish that we could lose this crowd / Maybe it’s better this way / We’d hurt each other with the things we want to say (I want to say SHUT UP!!)
What is it about this song?
Everyone thinks they can sing it, for one thing. For another, it’s a common choice for street musicians; I think I’ve heard it all over town, under- and above-ground, and in other cities. Today, I was crossing town and walking through Grand Central Station, and I heard it — because you can hear it from a long, long, LONG way away. A subway musician was playing Careless Whisper. A saxophone was wailing loudly, and I was filled with dread as I got closer, having to keep listening whether I wanted to or not (I didn’t). Turns out, it was a young black woman wearing a teeny black cocktail dress and very high heels, playing a sax. She’d hung a small iPod — the shuffle, I believe — on the microphone, and it seemed to be providing all the other musical parts. In other words, she was playing accompaniment to recorded music. Just her and her sax.
And boy o boy was she overly emotionally expressing herself. She was working it, squatting, waving her body around, leaning forward, leaning back, contorting her face around the mouthpiece. If it had been any other song, I might’ve just laughed (not out loud, just in my head) at the silly over the top-ness of her act. But that song. Oy. Anything but that song.
When you’re weary, feeling small, when tears are in your eyes I will dry them all.
I’m on your side….
My Katie girl loves music from the 60s. She always has. In junior high she wore a different Beatles t-shirt to school every day and could rotate for a couple weeks without repeating. You could name a Beatles song — any song — and she’d tell you which album, and in most cases, which side of the album. She goes to concerts as long as Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, CSNY, or any of those guys are on the ticket. So this afternoon, she emailed me with three youtube links to music she’s been looping all afternoon. She just saw Paul Simon in concert on Sunday so I wasn’t all that surprised by the songs, but I was happy to see the list: Sound of Silence, The Boxer, and Bridge Over Troubled Water. Those songs were popular when I was 7 or 8 years old, and listening to them makes me feel that year in my skin and muscles. Music is awesome that way.
The songs were performed live at Madison Square Garden when they were inducted into the Hall of Fame. I was loving, enjoying, remembering, re-experiencing, and just being lost in the music. But the 3rd one she sent, Bridge Over Troubled Water, was mesmerizing for a different reason. For the second verse, Simon comes out to sing a verse solo, after Garfunkel had sung the first verse solo. But the thing is, he didn’t have his guitar. It was just him, standing in front of the microphone. I didn’t think much about it, but then he started moving, moving his hands, moving his body, and it was really hypnotizing, like watching music in a physical way. Here, see what I mean:
See? Kinda cool. I love watching people make music. It was the only redeeming thing about Sunday’s not-klezmer-concert, watching the musicians making the not-klezmer music.
Back to Simon & Garfunkel for me. Thank you Katie!
Let go of the past and go for the future. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you imagined. ~[good old] Thoreau
It’s early — only two days into my big life project — so it’s really premature to make any pronouncements. But I do have these comments, in case they’re helpful to any of you trying to pursue a similar dream:
Coming up with a routine has been a great help. Since my dream is writing, my routine is organized to make that as easy to begin as possible, since it’s the beginning that’s usually so hard. Initially, I have these things in my calendar, and I’m being a little bit rigid about them: Up at 6, do my morning page writing (~15 minutes it takes). Have breakfast. Write for a minimum of one hour, but no more than 1.5 hours. Get to work (dang it).
But here’s the genius thing. Morning pages are meant to be crap. Just brain dump, freewriting, keeping the fingers moving until you hit 750 words (or whatever marker you set). It’s meant to be junk. It’s meant to be waste. What I’ve been doing these past two mornings is using the morning pages to work out what I’m going to write. Just rambly exploration, getting me going. This morning when I was writing my morning pages, it felt like something just clicked and I completely understood what it is to be a writer of fiction. I was writing about what I was going to write about, and I started talking about the characters like this: “then the kids should do this. What would happen if the father did this? What would the kids do? The options for the father are this, this, and this. If he does this, what would the kids do? Blah blah blah.” It was also neat because it shifted me more toward fiction and away from just telling my own little story, which is my tendency. It was very neat. So then I was outlining how the action would unfold, after I’d figured out what the father and everyone else would do. Then I went back and made notes – so this is a place to really showcase the mother’s cruelty in dialogue. This section is a good place to get a description of the kitchen. IT WAS FUCKING AMAZING. Like some kind of real shift from navel-gazing diarist to novelist.
The accidental brilliance of this routine is that my morning pages writing has no pressure, but helps me get going. Then I stop and have breakfast, and while I’m making and eating it, despite myself I’m thinking about what I came up with, refining it, and getting more and more excited to get going. I have to force myself not to bolt my food — my other bad tendency, so this is helping me have to stay mindful and “be” eating breakfast — because I’m eager to get to the writing.
I had no idea this would work in this way. I’m great at coming up with schemes, usually overly-scheduled and rigid, and usually ineffective. That’s ok, you try something, it doesn’t work, you try something else. But this time it really opened the door.
the guy could handle the whole deal by himself. he didn’t need no stinking dinner partner.
Will had dinner with me tonight, to finish my birthday celebration. It was great — we ate at a diner in my neighborhood that has my favorite salad ever, of all times. He was still zinging around from his crazy busy day at work, so I chattered for a while to give him a chance to settle in and unwind. But sitting next to us was this very strange old man who was talking and gesturing — a lot, and loudly — to a dinner companion who just wasn’t there. He was lit, let’s just say it that way.
It was like getting a glimpse into the guy’s mind, because whatever he thought came out of his mouth, and it was influenced by the slightest things going on in his proximity. So when I took this picture of Will:
my crazy son who cannot take a picture seriously
the drunk dude at the next table started talking about cameras. He stopped the waiter and asked him about cameras, told him stories about an SLR he used to have that could only take great pictures. The waiter humored him for a second and then slipped away. Then the guy started talking about something else, and then he abruptly said MAMMY! while lifting his hand.
It alternated between being extremely annoying, kind of funny in a trainwreck kind of way, kind of sad, and back to extremely annoying. It hit annoying two times out of every four rounds through the emotions. Mainly he was annoying. Yeah.
Today I tried to take a new picture of my Wintry Mix sweater so you could really see it, since the photograph I took in the Catskills made it look like the shoulder was weird and rumply in a way it isn’t, really. It’s a very dark green and I was indoors, and it’s just hard to get a good shot of it. This is the best I could do; see the great cowl, and the beautiful shape? It’s a wonderful sweater if you’re in the mood for a bottom-up pullover.
Wintry Mix, by Amy Herzog (yarn: berroco blackstone tweed, in evergreen)
It’s a great sweater; obviously, I wear a very thin long-sleeved t-shirt underneath it for extra warmth and because it feels a little better. The blackstone tweed is 65% wool, 25% mohair, and 10% angora, and it’s just the tiniest bit uncomfortable for some reason. That’s not really right — it’s just a tiny bit more comfortable with a very thin shirt underneath. I really love the sweater, and can’t recommend the pattern enough. I changed it up so the collar is more a cowl than a big flat Peter Pan-type collar, and I love it that way. And Will approves — he’s been my fashion approver for a very long time.
thank you for helping me have such a wonderful birthday!
I had perhaps the best birthday of my life yesterday. Honestly. And since I love my birthday so much, there’s a lot of competition for the “best birthday so far” title. Here’s a rundown:
We were off to the subway at 9:45, to go downtown to City Winery in Soho for my klezmer brunch. There was a jazz guitar player at our station, playing my song (Somewhere Over the Rainbow). It was so beautiful, resonating and echoing in the subway, it made me cry and feel like it was a serendipitous start to my day. Oh — and the day itself was stunningly beautiful, bright blue skies and sun. Then on the way downtown, at one stop a band got in the train. . . mariachi!! I love the mariachi bands, they’re my favorite. They were wonderful, my cheeks were hurting from grinning so hard. Two for two, my favorites, oh what a day.
At the restaurant, the receptionist was downright mean — who cares, it’s my birthday. We arrived at 10:30, and the music was to start at 11, so we ordered our food. Despite what the menu said, our sour waitress said they don’t serve espresso drinks, just plain coffee (maybe she was tired of disappointing everyone since all around me people were trying to order cappuccino). Who cares. Coffee is fine! I ordered a frittata with onions and goat cheese; my husband can’t stand goat cheese, so I get it when I’m out. Score! My song, mariachi, and goat cheese. Winning, what a birthday!
The food arrived just before the music was to start, which made me so happy. The trouble was that the band didn’t seem to be ready. One guy would be on the stage, occasionally two, rarely the same two, and never the whole gang. The restaurant had loud music playing on the big speakers and the band members would do warm-up runs at the same time, and there was a huge group of very loud people off to the side, all shouting at the same time. Cacophony. 11:10, no music. 11:15, 11:20, 11:25, 11:30. No music. And still, the entire band was never on the stage at the same time. Finally, at 11:40, they all gathered on the stage (music was to begin at 11, remember!) but they couldn’t get the sound system set up. The sour waitress came to refill my cup and I guess she was just as startled as I was to see the whole band on the stage, because she poured coffee all over the table and on my elbow.
Still. My birthday. The band finally started playing at 11:45. Here’s what I have to say to the leader of the band: DUDE. Just because you play the clarinet, that does not mean you’re playing klezmer music. It was jazz, and not just jazz, but the kind of jazz where everyone is playing their own thing, whatever they want, and the bongo drums were too loud on top of it. And also, dude? Klezmer bands don’t have bongos.
But I didn’t care too much. Breakfast is my favorite meal to go out for, and it was a gorgeous day. When the 3rd song still wasn’t klezmer, we cut our losses and headed out for a walk to Chinatown, to buy shrimp. Such a beautiful day.
I got emails and facebook posts from friends all over the world, several friends sent me patterns through Ravelry (more on those in coming posts!), all three of my daughters called me and touched my heart, I saw my son after dinner and he touched my heart, and my husband just made the whole day very loving and special. I had an incredible dinner, orange shrimp, my mouth still smiles remembering it. AND I got a funny story out of the klezmer brunch debacle.
So I begin my 53rd year honoring my commitments to myself. I woke up and wrote my morning pages, 750 words more or less; I ate breakfast, and then wrote for an hour and a half and finished a scene for my novel; I did my strength training routine (yay, back in that saddle!); and at noon I’m heading out for a very fast walk in the sunshine, and to drop off a couple packages at the post office.
Lots to say, still, but lots to do! Gotta dash.
happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear me-ee, happy birthday to me! and many more…..
If you really understood how much I love my birthday, you’d not be surprised to hear that I’ve been thinking about this post for a very long time. Last year my organizing structure for my birthday post was mid-century modern — I loved it. To me it was funny and apt, two of my favorite things. So for months I’ve let this rattle around in the back of my brain, hoping to come up with something funnier or apt-er, but alas, nothing new. But in honor of my birthday, in honor of the year I just spent, and in joyful anticipation of the year to come, I do make a few notes. This post will be photo-heavy, so I insert a jump if you’re not interested: CLICK to continue reading mid-century modern, #2... Continue reading »
finally, taking up this one big dream.
OK — here is my big leap, taking my vague handwavey post from several days ago and making it concrete. Once you put something into words, and even more, once you say it out loud, it’s real in a different way, and you’re accountable in a different way. It’s easy to have all kinds of half-seen dreams floating around, those “some day” thoughts that tickle, and as long as they stay there, they’re no threat.
It has always been so scary to think about this, and of course the reasons are obvious. As long as I don’t try, I don’t have to face failure, if I’m not actually very good. As long as I don’t try, I don’t have to be uncomfortable in that way. As long as I don’t try, I can keep doing all the wonderful avoidance things I do. Like “well, I’ll just run through facebook/google reader and then I’ll do it.” Ha, of course.
It occurs to me quite often that the only difference between me and creative people I admire is that they do it, they don’t just think and talk about it. They might be better or worse than me, but the important difference is that they’re doing it, and I’m just thinking about doing it. Or talking about doing it. Or talking about thinking about it. Oh I’m so clever at this avoiding business.
So here it is, my big dream. At the highest level, my big dream is to finally live a creative life. Me being me, I’ve made an Excel spreadsheet, breaking this down into a number of areas, but they all fall under this umbrella. I can so easily get lost in the pleasure of spreadsheets and multi-level outlines, with footnotes and cross references, but for this post I focus on just one very big piece.
I want to write a book. A novel. This is my desperate big dream. Working as an editor has really helped me get closer to this goal; I am so much better at understanding what makes a story work, what makes a story move or stall, what makes a character come alive or remain flat. I have a lot to say, and I believe that if I can just get out of my own way and unclench my jaw a little bit, I can do it. But I’ll never do it if I don’t begin.
I’ve thought a lot about what stops me, and one thing that almost always pushes the pause button is my elevation of authors and novels to such a vaulted place. Books saved my life as a child, and that’s not an exaggeration. To think that I might write something that a reader would keep in his or her heart, something that would give someone an idea of other ways of living and being, that’s about as noble a thing as I personally know. Art can do that for us, it saves us and creates us and helps us understand the world and our own experience. But thinking of it that way is intimidating.
One thing I want to do to help myself is to develop a creative routine. For a few weeks I wrote a minimum of 750 words every morning — morning pages — and boy did it cut something loose in me. I felt like a different kind of observer in the world. I’m also organizing my week so I do at least one expanding thing a week: go to an art exhibit or one of the fantastic museums here in town; go to a performance of some kind, theater, talk, reading; if ever there were a place that makes this goal easy and do-able, it’s Manhattan for heaven’s sake.
This is part of a bigger project, so it’s a kind of interlocking puzzle. It’ll be hard to make it work, since I also need to resume my strength training and I have other physical goals that require time, other social goals that require time. I’m scared and excited, and more than a little bit intimidated.
Thanks for the support you give me by visiting and reading my blog, and by leaving comments when you do. You’ve helped me on my way more than you know.
nah nah nah nah nah nah — they say it’s my birthday (eve) — well happy birthday (eve) to ya (me). never mind. Eat cake!!
Birthday Eve, it ought to be a more well-known event! We have Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve, and birthdays also come around just once a year so the eve is a big deal.
Well, it is to me, so there. It’s my birthday eve. It’s a stunningly beautiful day, though my waking up to it wasn’t so nice. The hounds-of-hell heat dried me out so badly I woke up with a nose gushing blood. NICE. But who cares, it’s my birthday eve (see how well that works?). I’m spending the morning doing some deep housecleaning, since the floor-mopping fairies haven’t arrived in a while, and then I have some personal writing and thinking to do. After that I’ll pick up the first sleeve on my green sweater; last night I completely finished the collar and band, got it all bound off (loosely enough, go me!), and have spent the morning resisting taking a picture to show you. I lost — though I was going to take a picture of me wearing it, since it’s just the most adorable length, but I compromised and took some flat pictures. The color is kind of wonky from shot to shot — no idea how that could happen since it’s the same sweater, camera, light source, and background:
-
- it’s a narrow little band, to give more of a vertical line to the sweater’s front
-
- the whole enchilada (minus sleeves of course!)
-
- detail shot of the same design element around the sweater and down the band
[wow those colors are all off! bizarre. the emerald green in the previous post is right on the money.] Boy, I really love this sweater. It’s just hip-length, and swingy, and the yarn is so amazing, I know I’m going to wear it all winter long. Just not in my apartment, which will be sweltering all winter long. Stupid co-op.
But birthday eve, yay! Just 12 more hours to be 52. It was an excellent year.
green is katie’s favorite color, so i think of her with every stitch (like i need a reason to think of her….)
Well, of course I should be working — I’m up against a very hard deadline, and I didn’t work nearly as much as I should’ve when I was in Austin (who would! When you get to be with your beloved daughter so rarely, who’d spend that time working! Not me apparently.). I just finished one project and before I get going on the one with the hard deadline, I thought I’d show you some of the knitting-related stuff that happened last week, on my needles. Katie is making an adorable baby set for a friend — a sleep sack and hat — that look like The Very Hungry Caterpillar; when she posts pictures I’ll share them, it’s just so adorable.
But here’s my stuff. First, my gorgeous green sweater. I decided to add a little flash of color in the turned-under hem. The slipped stitch detail was great fun to knit, and the color makes every stitch a joy to work. I’m going to love wearing this sweater.
my Vodka Gimlet -- dubbed Oz Delight for my rav project page.
This is the yarn I bought for the hem. I used so little, I need to figure out a small project that’ll allow me to use up the rest of the beautiful yarn.
Manos del Uruguay, silk blend
And two skeins of Madelinetosh, tosh merino light:
tosh merino light, in rosewood
tosh merino light, in terra. i LOVE this color!
I’m truly nuts about that orange color. I would’ve bought a lighter neutral like antler if they’d stocked it at Hill Country Weavers. I want to make a Stripe Study Shawl, and I figured these two would be good additions to my small stash of tosh merino light.
I’m knitting the collar on my Oz Delight, and since it’s a narrow collar it shouldn’t take me too long. Then I “just” have to knock out the two sleeves, but I’m highly motivated so maybe it won’t take too long. I didn’t work on my little yellow featherweight at all, just not enough time in the days. What a great problem, too many wonderful things to do!
Now: back to work, Lori! SERIOUSLY.
i miss katie. i really, really miss katie. why can’t i be in two places at once??
The insane boiler heat is back — thanks, co-op board — so I have my cool weather/hounds of hell heat headache once again. I woke up at 2am covered in sweat, and it had nothing to do with hot flashes and everything to do with the hissing radiators. Of course we have all our windows wide open, trying to modulate the temperature.
I’m not ready to get back to my regularly-scheduled life, so I take a minute here to stall it a bit more:
- I put this on facebook so I would remember it — apologies, then, if you read it there. When I was in the Austin airport, the TSA agent was very chatty. I guess Texan trumps TSA, because she wasn’t grim and stern like they usually are. My turn came, and I stepped up to her little table and handed her my boarding pass and ID, expecting to be waved through after she scribbled on the boarding pass. Instead, she said “What’s your specialty?” Well! My immediate thoughts were I’m really good at being happy ….. I knit …. I make excellent bread …. and I just had no idea how to answer her, nor did I know why in the world she was asking me such a bizarre question. I thought maybe it was some kind of new TSA identity check, a person ought to be able to answer that immediately and if they can’t, maybe they’re not who they say they are. Then I ran through possible occupation answers I might give, but I never know how to answer that either: writer, editor, teacher, ah! Psychologist, I said. She smiled and said “It says Dr. on your boarding pass so I was just curious.” (p.s. if you’re on facebook, friend me! I’m ldh.ny)
- My cabbie last night was unusual. First, he was friendly and chatty, which is partly unusual. After he put my suitcase in the trunk and got settled in his seat, I gave him my destination. He said “Columbia.” “Yeah, near Columbia,” I answered. That’s good, I thought, since cabbies often misunderstand my address. Then he asked me if I’m a professor. I do teach undergraduate students, so the easiest answer was yes — and he just beamed. “How did I know!” he said through his big grin. He asked what subject I teach, and when I said psychology he said “Ah! I’m a very lucky person, I can ask you questions! You have a PhD?” When I said yes, I do, he said “I’m right again!” Then he talked a little bit about how arrogant Lindsay Lohan is, what’s wrong with her. He was so charming, seeing himself as such a lucky person, knowing so many things about me. It was a sweet ending to a sad travel day.
- One awful thing about missing my Katie is that now I know the fine texture of her day, I can so easily imagine what she’s doing at any given time. It’s only 8:30 in Austin, as I write, so she’s sleeping, but she’ll be up soon, and she’ll make Trey’s lunch. My chest aches with the missing her.
- My birthday is coming right up, this Sunday. I’ll be 53, which is startling because I think I’ve been saying that I’m 53 for the last several months. I always do this. The coolest thing is that Sunday is the day we change the clocks — spring forward, fall back — which means my birthday is 25 hours long this year. WHEE! And it’s stunningly beautiful weather, and it will be through the weekend:
look at that!
- I bought three gorgeous skeins of yarn at Hill Country Weavers (remarkable restraint, don’t you agree??), which I’ll photograph later. I also made a lot of progress on my Oz Delight sweater, which I’ll also photograph. Knitting post to come, then.
this little guy was a real maverick.
Trey's jack-o-lantern
So there we were last night, handing out candy to trick-or-treaters, waiting for our wonderful dinner, listening to scary music, talking with a friend who came over to spend the evening with us. We munched on Katie’s roasted pumpkin seeds, Trey tended to the smoking pork, it was lovely.
The doorbell rang so Katie picked up her basket of candy and opened the door, and before she knew it a little boy walked through the door, into the living room, sat down on her couch, and started exploring his candy as if he were at home. His dad seemed kind of embarrassed and came in to retrieve his son, who didn’t really want to leave. He finally got the boy out of the house and down the sidewalk, but the boy broke free and was headed for the door again.
It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. We laughed and laughed, and wondered what was up with that kid.
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