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!
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??
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 »
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:
-
- detail shot of the same design element around the sweater and down the band
-
- the whole enchilada (minus sleeves of course!)
-
- it’s a narrow little band, to give more of a vertical line to the sweater’s front
[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.
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.
“Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.” ~Lionel Hampton
This morning the sun broke through the clouds and there were blue skies….. as we were leaving. Boo. Still, we got to see and remember how much difference it makes when the sun hits the fall foliage. The oranges that were there, hidden by the cloudcast, emerged just for us.
moody berries -- don't know why, they just struck me as moody. sullen, perhaps.
i want a little house like this, on a river. in fact, i have a very well-developed and detailed fantasy about such a house. i know what it would look like, down to the pillows on the couch.
not the most brilliant orange i've ever seen, but it'll do!
knitters and other yarn-ey folk like me might look at this and see a brilliant semi-variegated yarn. at least, i did.
a short and winding road. leads to someone's door, i'm sure.
Two weeks from today will be my birthday, and I was telling my husband this morning that in the lead-up to my birthday, I always find myself feeling more and more grateful…..about every little thing. Light. Color. Sweet air. smoke from fireplaces. Good coffee and tea. Thinking. Smiling. Everything. I feel overwhelmed by it, and I’m even grateful for that.
if you want to be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife….i like that song despite itself
You know, the concept of happy is so much richer than smiling and laughing.
- I’m going to the Paul Winter Summer Solstice performance at St John the Divine. June 18 at 4:30 in the morning. The Winter Solstice concert was so wonderful, and this one is obviously very very different but I imagine it’ll be wonderful too!
- In light of the fact that I’ve been thinking about what constitutes a meaningful life, I loved this poem fragment by Ramond Carver. It’s on his headstone:
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
- This page offers 28 things she learned about body image and life, and they’re marvelous. My favorites:
8. You’re beautiful. Period.
14. You have to stand for something.
15. Sleep is not over-rated.
16. But perfection is.
17. A diet is not a magic elixir that leads to everything you want.
18. Success looks easy, but it takes a lot of work, sweat, tears, late nights and early mornings. And the road is sometimes paved with nails.
- Today is Will’s 24th birthday — I haven’t been able to celebrate with him since he turned 18, so this is monumental. My kids’ birthdays are the best days of the year for me, anyway, and this one has layers of extra joy. Over the years, he’s been these boys:
One thing that’s not making me happy, though, is the crappy weather. Spring in NYC has been slow and late, cold and rainy. There were unusual breaks that allowed for sunny beautiful days, but on the whole it’s just been kind of pitiful. Beginning tomorrow, the 10-day forecast shows cloudy skies and rain. NO FUN, WEATHER GODS. No fun at all. But as Will says, there’s nothing more boring than talking about the weather.
Happy Friday y’all!
LATE FRAGMENT
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
forget your troubles, c’mon get happy…
Light’s coming, spring is coming, happier days are coming, it’s all just right there. I can see it, and I can tell that it’s just beyond the shadow of tomorrow, and you know? That’s enough! Here are some things that are making me very happy right now:
- Marnie’s husband Tom knocked it out of the park yesterday, in celebrating her birthday: yesterday he made her breakfast in bed, and mid-morning he showed up at her office with a tissue-wrapped mystery birthday box and a tulip and a box of gluten-free cookies. When she got off work at 12:30, he took her to the butterfly sanctuary to give her summer warmth (they live in Chicago), then to private ballroom dancing lessons, then to the movies for the Oscar-nominated animated shorts, followed by a sushi dinner, ending with a night at the Belden-Stratford hotel, a historic place. Nice way to celebrate my daughter, sweet son!
- Tomorrow I’m heading out to the Delaware Water Gap for a day trip, to help me not sit around dwelling on the historical details of the date for me. I also bought two pots of daffodils, which have always made me so happy — who can be too sad when they see daffodils! What amazing things they are.
- My daughter Katie is hilarious. She keeps a blog but it’s private, so I can’t just give you a link but I’ll paste her most recent post here, to give you a laugh too:
Dear Adele,
I hate you. My husband and I were watching you on Letterman earlier this week performing “Rolling in the Deep” from your new album, 21. He asked, “Why is it called that? Is she 21 or something?” To which I replied, “No way! She’s much older than that.” I looked it up. You’re not. You’re 22 now. I hate you. You’ve won 2 Grammys and are widely accepted as being awesome, and you’re only 22. Your videos seem to be saying, “Hi Katie, I’m Adele and I’m 6 years younger than you. What have you done with your life?” Well, Adele, I organized my files yesterday and today I’m going to clean the kitchen.
I hate you. Stop being so good.
Sincerely,
Katie
I can’t read that without cracking up, no matter how many times I read it.
- Ongoing scheduled and spontaneous meetings with Will — twice this week already, including last night’s spontaneous get-together at a neighborhood pub. Very sweet.
my frequently-worn handknit sweaters: Dark & Stormy, Peasy, and Mondo Cable Cardi. Unending love and adoration and disbelief, my hands made all that fabric, one little stitch at a time
ignore the fact that this photo looks like a catfish, this is the current state of Will's black socks. I stupidly just tossed it in my bag and a bunch of the stitches fell of the needles. OOPS. Not happy making, but the picture makes me giggle.
So what’s one difficult little day in the midst of all this? Tomorrow will come and go, and it’s embedded in all kinds of things, all kinds of life all around it. I always know this, it just sometimes gets kind of dark in here.
happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear sweet marnie, happy birthday to you!
She’s 26 years old, today (exactly half my age!). She’s an artist / weight lifter / thoughtful smart loving funny creative sweet tough genuine amazing authentic person. Marnie has been special from the moment of her birth (and I’m not just kidding here, or using hyperbole or just being her mom) (though I am her mom) (and real proud of it) (and of her too) (because she is a fine, fine human being). If she loves you you’re a very lucky person. I’m a very lucky person. Happy birthday, Marnie my love.
she loves photobooths
she loves nature (though she prefers ants to turtles)
she used to LOVE being fancy and adorable
she loves irony -- (as in, wearing this pink fuzzy sweater ironically)
she loves Tom (me too)
she's one of the smartest people I know (Smith 2006), and i happen to know a bunch of very smart people so that's saying something
and she's freaking aDORable on top of it all
she loves cows
y'all remember this one.
and she loves me.
and many more…..
It’s such a disappointment, only being able to celebrate virtual friends’ birthdays virtually — I am such a huge fan of birthdays, obviously, so I’d like to make a big fuss of everyone’s but alas. Sara lives in NH.
Today’s a big birthday for Sara — you’ve read her comments around these parts, I’m sure, and if you’re on rav perhaps you already know her (nhsarab). Maybe you read her blog, too. Whatever, wherever, however, today is a very special birthday so pop over one way or the other and wish her
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARA!!
I hope it’s a wonderful celebration today, and I wish you an exciting and happy year ahead.
and many more….
I’m sure she’s not the only knitting linguist, but she’s the only one I happen to know, and today is her birthday (da da da da da da, da da), happy birthday to her (da da da da da da, da da) — if you read many comments on my blog, you’ve run into Jocelyn, she of the warm heart and thoughtful response.
Midweek birthdays aren’t the best for celebrating, and on top of it, she’s in meetings all day today, so if you’re of a mind, hop over to her blog or ravelry and send a little happy birthday of your own.
Happy birthday, Jocelyn! Here’s to a year filled with time for knitting, loads of smart students, good times with your beautiful family, and easily surmountable problems if problems must be had.
from poe to kafka to aqua socks. it’s one of those days.
I was thinking about how my posts seems to veer between thoughtful ones — a run of those — and knitting ones, a run of those. (With daily boring ones scattered in between, of course.) So that made me think of a pendulum, and how there are emotional states that go with both ends, too. Introspection is, for me, associated with quieter, more melancholy moods, though not exclusively of course. My brighter moods can be introspective too, but it’s the quieter moods that lead me to write more introspective posts. When I’m dashing about with little time to think, well, it’s pretty obvious that it’ll be the shallower posts, the “here let me show you this thing” posts that are more prevalent.
So then, thinking of one end of the pendulum made me think of a pit of melancholy, which took me then to Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum, which opens with these great lines:
I was sick, sick unto death, with that long agony, and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me. The sentence, the dread sentence of death, was the last of distinct accentuation which reached my ears.
And then that reminded me of Kafka’s deeply horrifying story, In the Penal Colony. And then, after all that descent into horror, I remember: wait! I was going to show you some pretty socks!
Anna's 20th birthday socks, Komet
They’re the Komet socks by Stephanie van der Linden. If you think the color is familiar, you’re right. I originally bought this color — Sweetgeorgia in summer skin — and I must’ve been drunk or insane, because I bought it specifically to make these socks. But I bought it in worsted weight. WHAT was wrong with me. I’d planned to make socks for my youngest daughter Anna, who turns 20 early in February, so I showed it to her when she was home over the break. I actually gave her a choice of this color or another, and she picked this color.
The day after Christmas, I picked up the yarnWHAT?! Worsted weight, was I insane (I ask myself this question a lot)? I immediately went online and ordered a skein in sock weight. And I just got it yesterday, almost a month later. Note to self and to y’all: don’t order from Sweetgeorgia if you need something in anything approximating a hurry. I’ll have to get the socks in the mail by Saturday 2/5 to get them to her in time, so I’ve got to focus and get them done. Other people can knock a pair of socks out in that amount of time, I just don’t know if I can. I imagine I’ll be knitting all weekend. Like that’s a bad thing.
Another snowstorm last night — what’s that, the 3rd one so far this year? And today’s only the 21st? Hope it’s warm where you are, and if it’s not, I hope you get to stay inside and knit.
lots to get done, getting lots done. pumpkin pie and cranberry bars, tandoori chicken and packing for laos, and lotsa deciding. i’m the decider.
Just a quick update note here – lots to do, lots getting done. SUCH AS
sturm und drang - i prefer storm and shadows
Progress on my 52nd birthday sweater! It’s looking so good; I put it on my footstool to go take the cranberry bars out of the oven, and when I came back the shadows were so dramatic I thought I’d snap the photo. I got nearly this far yesterday, only to realize I’d done the small twisted-stitch cables all wrong so I frogged the whole damn thing. I’m beyond where I was, so alles gute (where is all this german coming from!! i don’t speak german. though i am descended from a bunch of germans, all of whom were named Frank Peters, who arrived in Texas from Hanover in the early 1800s). ANYWAY. I love my sweater. It’s darker than it looks in that photo; the sunshiney parts are so blown out, but the other parts are so dark that the combo just freaked out my camera.
tandoori chicken with grilled onions and zucchini
Look at the yummy dinner I had last night – garlicky tandoori chicken, making my mouth water just remembering it. I’m not kidding; my salivary glands in my jaws are having painful spasms.
And here’s the “stuff” part of the post title. I decided to take the afghan I’m knitting for my vacation knitting.
the pattern is Totally Autumn (Anne Hanson) and the yarn is Cascade 200 Heathers
It’s a simple pattern, no extra gadgets are needed (cable needles, materials to hold sleeves, markers, nothing). Plus, I really want to get it done, and when I’m at home I seem to be more likely to work on sweaters now that I’m a dedicated sweater fiend. This way, I’ll get it done, it’ll be more special since I completed it in Laos and Cambodia on our vacation, and when I get home I can dive headlong into my sweaters. For my “just in case” knitting, I’ll take the purple owl eyes scarf. I can’t imagine that I’ll finish this afghan, but you never know.
Hope you’re having a great Sunday, a lovely weekend, and doing some happy knitting.
Joyeux anniversaire, joyeux anniversaire, joyeux ANNIVERSAIRE KTY, joyeux anniversaire
Growing up in Texas, I did the perfectly logical thing when required to take a foreign language in high school. I took French. Spanish, bah! No way! Who needs it! French is the way to go, in a state that used to be part of Mexico! I was President of the French Club, and my teacher (Mme Hill) had without a doubt the WORST french accent ever of all times, bar none. Bone-djurr toot le moan-dee! Je m’a-pELL muDAM HILL! Still, she made up for it with her enthusiasm for all things French. And that worked for me, because I was one of those girls, the dreamy-eyed “want to live in Paris some day” girls. My favorite author when I was in 4th grade? Victor Hugo. Quasimodo’s pleas for sanctuary were more personally meaningful than I will say in this space, and when I finally landed in Paris, at the age of 43, I immediately hauled my jet-lagged ass to Notre Dame de Paris and stood there, crying my eyes out.
yep - me with platinum hair, with dark roots. a la madonna. i loved it!
SO the point is I love Paris. I want to go back…..and if I do, I definitely want to meet Kty in person! Sure, she writes her blog in French, but you can usually make out enough of it, and she knits such beautiful things, and she posts comments in English, and she’s very sweet about it when google translate makes your “frenchified” comments on her blog sound retarded. Here she is on ravelry – Aside from the fact that she’s my favorite living Parisian, I bring her up because TODAY IS HER BIRTHDAY!!! 11/11! yay! YIPPEE! Happy birthday, Kty – I hope it’s a wonderful year for you. Y’all, click on over to her site and post a little birthday greeting, won’t you? Just say it like this:
Joyeux anniversaire Kty!
i love these two things and have to give them away. it’s the PROCESS it’s the PROCESS it’s the PROCESS (repeat over and over until I convince myself…..)
The two women in my writing group asked me to knit scarves for them. I finished the Lace Ribbon Scarf for Susan, made with my leftover Rowan Felted Tweed from Peasy (which, by the way, gets a compliment every single time I wear it, including from my physician yesterday). So here’s Susan’s scarf:
lace ribbon scarf (Veronik Avery), in Rowan Felted Tweed
And here’s the beginning of Marian’s scarf; she chose the Tiger Eyes Lace Scarf by Toni M. Maddox, and she chose Curious Creek Fibers Meru from my stash, in a deep purple colorway named Purple Martin. The yarn is laceweight, half silk half merino; since (a) I want to finish the scarf pretty quickly and (b) I like the heft of the scarves made with fingering-weight yarn, I am holding it double. See?
the pattern is called tiger eyes, but it looks like owls to me!
i really like it - and it's great fun to knit!
Really – it doesn’t look like tiger eyes, does it? It’s owl faces all the way. Right?
And my birthday gift, that thing in the long rectangular box wrapped in silver paper?
my birthday present - turtlegirl was right, it was a swift!
Of course I immediately put a skein of yarn on and wound it up – the Wollmeise that Tammy gave me. It took, like, 3 minutes, and I was grinning the whole time. I used to have a swift (which I kept permanently mounted on the castle of my 48″ 8-harness jack loom, ah the good old days) and I’ve really missed it.
I have too much work to get done before I leave for Laos – 2 giant manuscripts (one which needs to be re-ghost-written) and a couple small projects – so I’d better quit farting around here and get to work. Happy Tuesday y’all!
happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear me-ee, happy birthday to me! and many more…..
That’s me – I’m mid-century modern. I know that most people think of architecture and furniture and decorations when they hear that phrase, like these:
-
- i lived in a house just like this, but with a turquoise/aqua door, back in the early 1960s. 3304 whiteway drive. 1st grade.
-
- in style again, kind of like me!
I was born in the small north-Texas town of Graham, on November 6, 1958 – mid-century….mid-last-century, which is pretty weird. Dwight Eisenhower the President, hula hoops the rage, NASA was created, Sir Edmund Hillary reached the South Pole, and Elvis was inducted into the army. There was a crazy economic recession that year; the average price for a new house was $12,570; monthly rent was $92; average annual salary was $4,600, and gas cost 25 cents/gallon. Volare and Tequila were popular songs; popular movies were Vertigo, Gigi, and The Bridge on the River Kwai. On the tube, people watched Candid Camera, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Jack Benny Show, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents (in black and white, of course).
I was the first-born child of an 18-year old girl and a 19-year old boy, both high school dropouts. One dear grandfather was an oilfield roughneck until he retired, at which point he was the janitor at the hospital; I’m not sure he made it to 8th grade. One grandmother was Cherokee; she preferred to live alone in the woods.
Everyone’s lives are far too complex to summarize…..certainly in a silly little public blog post. But here, as I turn 52 years old, I can say these things with certainty:
- my life has been much, much better than it had any right to be
- becoming a mother redeemed and saved me
- for most of my adult life, I’ve felt like I was 27. I think I feel like I’m 28 now.
- i’ve gone places i didn’t even know to dream about when i was growing up
- physical places like Hanoi (Vietnam) and Varanasi (India) and Arequipa (Peru) and Enkuisen (The Netherlands) and Cavtat (Croatia) and Luang Prabang (Laos); the Ganges and the Mekong Rivers
- emotional places like so far gone in love with my children;
- intellectual places, like getting a PhD (I thought grad school was just like 17th grade, and if you wanted to just stay on after you got a bachelor’s you just kind of kept hanging around);
- life places, like working on Madison Ave for a big-ass publisher and living in Manhattan
- life is everything, luckily not all at once
- you probably do get to have everything, just not all at once, or when it would be most convenient for you
- the trick: get up at least one more time than you fall down
- literature can save you
- art too
- you’re stronger than you imagine
- laughing helps
- love is gold
- hope isn’t about pink ponies and rainbows and sunny happy feelings; hope is that thing with feathers that perches in your soul, and you need it
Since my last birthday, I’ve traveled a lot (to Croatia, back to Honduras, several trips upstate, to Wisconsin for Marnie’s wedding, to Austin to see Katie), I’ve quit a job that made me too stressed for my own good, I’ve eaten a lot of meals with friends, I’ve made new friends, and I’ve finished knitting ~23 things. The coming year will bring travel to Laos and Cambodia for sure, Nicaragua perhaps (or some other beachy place), and solidifying our next fall vacation….Ethiopia maybe. I hope it brings plenty of work, continued good health, more time with people I love, and I hope the inevitable problems are surmountable and small.
So happy birthday to me, to another fine year behind, and another one to come. If you haven’t made it to the 50s yet, I heartily recommend it as an excellent decade of life.
love xo
Lori
just one of those days, the one where i’m so very glad to be alive. you know.
seeing: this very long rectangular gift-wrapped box. what could it be?! i’ll know tomorrow.
what's IN there????
hearing: the hiss of the radiator and the hum of the humidifier
tasting: mint tea, yum
mint tea, always yummy
touching: besides the keyboard? well, I keep reaching into my knitting basket to touch these two luscious things:
color and texture, this counts for seeing AND touching!
smelling: the yeasty smell of homemade bread rising. pizza dough, actually. which means we’ll have a very yummy dinner tonight!
These are not senses, but I’m calling them anyway:
- anticipating: my birthday tomorrow, and leaving for our trip to Laos and Cambodia in 13 days
- grateful for: you, my life, and for being alive
in which a gift prompts me to spend a little too much money. because i got a gift! i had to! this probably doesn’t make much sense unless (a) you’re a knitter, and/or (b) you click through to read the post.
First things first: I don’t broadcast my birthday to get presents….honestly, that’s not my M.O. I’m much more about the cake, and the singing, and the general fuss-making. The fuss is the point. The smiling at me is the point. The “glad you’re around” is the point.
When I used to work in an office, a long time ago, I used to ‘make’ the UPS guy sing happy birthday to me. Did you know that people will do surprising things if you ask? I think it’s often due to the unexpected shock of it; the UPS guy would walk in, I’d say “It’s my birthday, sing to me!” and he’d get a stunned expression and just start singing. It always made me laugh, and it made my day.
So anyway, I reiterate the point of this post again before saying that I just got such a lovely birthday surprise! My friend Kelly (KellyinTexas on rav; I showed you a picture of us here, from my recent trip to Austin) just sent me a pattern from my queue/wishlist – the Dark and Stormy cardigan, designed by Thea Colman. Which….you’ll vouch for me on this one, I’m sure….means I had to buy yarn for it. Am I right ladies? Can I get a yeah-yeah sistah?! Partially in honor of Kelly, who adores madelinetosh as I do, I had to get tosh vintage, and I picked the gorgeous Baltic colorway. (No, really, I had to. It was a gift.)
Knittas are awesome, warm, generous people. It’s the eve of my birthday eve, and I have two exciting birthday gifts to help me remember that one year I turned 52 – thanks Kelly, and thanks again, Tammy.
And Dina and Kty, you can expect a lot of squealing and celebration from me on your birthdays……and anyone else who’s willing to come out of the closet and reveal your birthday, too.
the knitting on the bus goes round and round, round and round, round and round the knitting on the bus goes round and round, all the way to the DMV. i am so goofy.
Well, knitting changes my world, that might be a more appropriate statement. You ask, “Lori! How does knitting change the world?” (indulge me.) Here’s today’s deal. I have to go to the DMV to renew my driver’s license, which is hilarious since I don’t drive. But anyway, have to do it. And can’t do it online this year, because I have to have the eye exam. So I’ll take the bus to the Harlem branch and guess what, it’s raining today. Everything about this sounds awful.
BUT…..
While I’m on the bus, I’ll knit.
While I’m waiting on the interminable DMV line, I’ll knit.
While I’m on the bus coming home, I’ll knit.
I can’t wait.
Today and tomorrow are going to be all-rain-all-day, and I have the headache to prove it. So naturally, being the enormous fan of my birthday that I am, I immediately worried that Saturday was going to be rainy too. Rain won’t ruin my birthday, but it’d be nice if it were a pretty day. Right now, the forecast is for a sunny Saturday, yippee!! 52 I’ll be, yippee!! I’m extremely silly about birthdays, and always know (and remember) everyone’s. If you let me know yours, I’ll be silly about it too. I’m not sure why I’m like this; it’s not like my birthday was anything special when I was a kid. I just think it’s the one day of 365 that you get to be special, and don’t we all need that? One little day where we think about how glad we are to be here, where other people might even think they’re glad we were born too? Anyway, that’s how I think about it.
such a great time. 
Absence is a mighty loud presence, and right now Katie’s absence from my morning is screaming at me. I had such a wonderful time with her, every single minute was just a joy. You know, you start life with your kids knowing every tiny little detail about them – how they smell, what their poop is like today, the fact that coconut makes them gag, the way they talk in their sleep, and slowly slowly they move away from you. As it should be, of course. And then one day they don’t live with you and you get the high-level updates, what they’re studying in college, what they’re up to (filtered, of course). And then one day they have a grown-up life somewhere else and you don’t know the texture of their lives, and you “visit” each other. That’s hard going.
And of course it’s the whole point. From the moment they are born, they’re leaving. But that doesn’t mean it’s painless, even though there are those times all through their growing-up years when the idea that one day you’ll have your life back helps keep you going. Life is funny like that, giving and taking with the same hand.
There’s no way to catch up, so I’ll just post some photos that remind me of my wonderful visit:
katie making chili for dinner
behind katie's house
she has this beautiful big tree in her back yard
katie loves her dogs!
dear, regal oscar
My trip home was long but uneventful – when I finally made it through my front door, I was tired and sad the trip was over, and happy to be back home…..and excited to see this:
wollmeise AND nancy drew! delightful!!
My friend Tammy sent me a birthday package – surprising and so sweet! When we had our little yarn crawl trip earlier this year, I mentioned my curiosity about Wollmeise (first, how to pronounce the name) and lo and behold, Tammy sent me a skein. I don’t know the name of the color, but it’s very dark navy and green and blue-black with shades of rust and dark gold here and there. I think it may have a shawl destiny – Haruni, maybe. Don’t know yet. And you know how some people just have a gift-giving gift? That little book is Nancy Drew’s Guide to Life, which tickles me to death. Tammy, you are so awesome. Here are some handy pointers from the book:
From the chapter “Dating: A Primer” – A young lady with some judo skills can take care of unwanted advances in short order. ~The Whispering Statue
From the chapter “The Delicate Art of Etiquette” – Any woman who asks to be introduced to your widowed father is bad news. ~The Mystery of Lilac Inn
From the chapter “Sleuthing 101″ – Being able to throw your voice can get your unskilled assistants out of tight jams. ~The Ringmaster’s Secret
From the chapter “On Being a Lady” – Determination and spunk can elicit admiration from many arenas, even from the criminal element. ~The Phantom of Pine Hill
From the chapter “Powers of Observation” – Strange mechanical noises can only mean one thing: a printing press is being used for nefarious purposes. ~The Clue of the Broken Locket
And finally, I got a lot done on the tweed lace ribbon scarf, on my long flights. Just a little more and I’ll be finished with it and can start the scarf for my other writing group friend:
getting there
Lots to do this week, and then my 52nd birthday on Saturday. And I leave for Phnom Penh in 16 days! This is a wonderful time of year. Even if I do miss my Katie….and Marnie….and Trey and Tom….and Will.
happy birthday katie-kate!
OK, see, I was 23 years old, living in Austin Texas. My dad had died four months before, but I was just so so thrilled to be finally in labor, and about to see my firstborn child. Labor was long, as 1st labors often are, and she was nearly born tomorrow — 11:47pm she finally came out, screaming her lungs out. A head full of dark hair, and roly-poly rolls around her little fat neck. So cute, it makes my teeth grind just remembering how much I wanted to eat her up.
In most of the photos from her first months, you never see my face or head, because it was always leaning down into her crib. I never let the poor little thing alone; I held her all the time, nursed her all the time, never let her out of my attention. (Note: I really learned my lesson, and when baby #2 came along, she learned how to cry a little bit and wait for half a minute!)
All my thoughts today are with my daughter Katie, in Austin. The person who made me a mother, and saved/created my life in doing so. Happy birthday, Katie-Kate. (And Katie, look at the music widget below the photos. )
LOTS of photos after the jump: CLICK to continue reading it was 20 (8) years ago today….... Continue reading »
Popular posts: