Knitting like a crazed weasel. For a knitting blog, surprisingly devoid of knitting. Science, grief, life, bad jokes, politics, and way too many youtube videos.
So I'm discovering this week that apparently I'm really not functional enough to, oh, finish a sweater in any reasonable amount of time, but apart from that, things are okay.
I've been digging out from things this week. We had some dead houseplants. So I got some new ones, and re-potted the ones that really, really needed it, like the long-suffering coffee plant, and the aloe near the stove that has I swear to god only about half an inch of soil left in the pot after falling into the sink ten too many times. The lime plant is still happy and making a whole bunch of new limes for us just now--whee! I seem to do best with plants that appreciate benign neglect. Geraniums, for example, really thrive when you let them dry out totally and then finally water them. My geraniums are just ducky.
I also unearthed a bunch of (mostly) clean laundry and other clothing type items, and did a pile of ironing. I had some housecleaners for a while that would sometimes take my piles of stuff and jam everything into a plastic bag and then stick the plastic bag in a closet somewhere. This is how I found my gray turtleneck that I hadn't seen in about two years. Also several sets of curtains. Anyway, got to the bottom of several piles. And there are now some healthy (so far) new plants around. Yay!
Thank you, you guys, for your righteous outrage. It helps to know it's not just me, that some stuff sounds crazy to non-crazy people, too. I stayed home from the non-support group Thursday. The person who runs it is a friend of some friends, so I do have to bite my tongue a little bit, but if she ever follows up I think I'm going to just say I don't think the group's a good fit for me.
I am working toward fully functional, and some days, I think I can see it coming, but now and then, I notice that I'm not really all there. Who knew ironing was going to be such an emotional trip? I dreamed about dh more this week, too. There are probably several reasons why it's felt like an endless week. The ironing--well, I was starching cloth napkins ('cause I like to, that's why, shhh), and that dredged up this big thing. Big thing being that dh was positive that he was allergic to laundry starch. He was allergic to some kinds of bandage adhesive, which he discovered in his teens when he had an emergency appendectomy, but the laundry starch thing was based on him going on a business trip and having this horrendous sweating, heart racing, all kinds of scary, and it went away when he took off his shirt. He called me from his hotel with this whole story. And now, I think he may have been having a small heart attack then. And that the shirt was a coincidence. And I never put the pieces together until I was ironing napkins this week.
It changes nothing. It would not have, probably. And even if it would have, that's not the way things happened. Joan Didion writes that she keeps going back to what happened, and she eventually realizes that she's searching for a way to change something so that her husband dying didn't really happen. I'm pretty sure I'm doing the same thing. My head knows it won't help. But the animal part of me keeps trying to find a way for him to still be alive, keeps flying around in circles looking for where he might be, keeps wondering how to fix this. And is it really my fault, somehow. Wondering what I have to do to get to be with him again, please; I'm so sick of this, now, can I just go home to my husband and talk over this whole thing? No? How about if I do--
So it's been a long week. Looking for magic. The magic is from other places, like you guys and your astonishing patience and gentleness. And from spring. Wonderful kids. Really cool sock yarn. My cousin's having a baby--that's some pretty serious magic right there, too. Thank you, everybody. See you around.
Have you ever heard of Pilates exercise? For the longest time, I read it as the plural of Pontius. As it turns out, it's not quite as closely related to crucifixion as one might think. Apparently it's pronounced "pi-LAH-teez", for one thing. A few friends from town politics invited me to come and do a regular class with them. So, Sunday evenings, now, that's what I'm doing.
Ouch. Remember to breathe. Seriously, I keep forgetting, and then the teacher says, "and inhale," and I find yet again I have been holding my breath trying to concentrate on whatever the hell I'm supposed to be doing. It's good, though. I can use the strengthening, certainly.
I hunted in the closet for the yoga pants I know I own--somewhere!--because the sweatpants I wore at the first class kept flopping all over the place. Found 'em. Put 'em on. Looks like the skin from the saggy baggy elephant story.
One, two, three, kick! (this only makes sense if you remember the saggy baggy elephant story; apologies if you don't.)
I'm probably not going to go knit with the gang in Acton today, as I'm finishing up a project that's due today; see you at Javaroom, whoever's there.
Thanks, Old Round and Jena and Lynne; I'm feeling better today. Cranky. But better. I'm not sure I want to go to the bereavement support group that meets on Thursday, since they wouldn't let me come when I really needed to ("you're just too raw") and it pissed me off. Also I think it's a more God-oriented group than I'm comfortable with. Also it pisses me off that "all are welcome" except evidently me if I'm in a lot of pain, and no kids, please. How very welcoming. And inclusive! Oh, yes! I forgot to mention!
Looks like a definite, then--not going. Maybe this is that anger I keep reading about. (geez, Liz, ya think?)
Well, there it is. It slipped my mind when I was updating the sidebar that I had this on needles, zipping along toward completion. Maybe that's because it's such dreadful yarn to work with. Finished it a few minutes ago, including weaving in/cutting off ends as much as possible, and modelled by a very happy kid, who loves it. Dancing around, singing, "I have a poncho! I have a poncho!" is my clue on this.
If you look carefully, you will notice a stripe of sandy-type color. This is the part where I persisted in knitting with yarn encrusted with actual sand. Also road salt. I'll wash it, but had to show you guys first.
In other news, we got about a foot of snow, and close to midnight, my stealthy good samaritan neighbors crept up and shoveled my stairs. And sometime in the middle of the night, The Plow Guy came. Huzzahs all around! The Plow Guy even came back to re-plow--thank goodness, the driveway had gotten covered with more snow after he made his first pass. Now all I have to do is shovel away some relatively small piles, and we'll be able to go to the housewarming party we're invited to.
(grief warning)
I dreamed that dh was with me last night. He was sitting quietly while I had a ridiculous conversation with our deranged interior decorator, and quietly looked at me, indicating, hey, you can handle this stuff now. And then he was standing with his arms around me while we both looked out the kitchen window, and I said to him, this is my favorite part of the day, after the kids are in bed, being with you. And he held me, and then began to shrink, and I scooped him up in my arms and carried him and tried to run and he said as he was shrinking, I have to go now, and we kissed and I woke up as he dissolved in my arms. I knew he was dead in the dream. It felt like he was there anyway.
I can't do this. I have to do this.
Finishing one thing, moving on to another. I don't know how. I don't even remember how many things there are. I'll try and figure it out as I go.
Busy week, of course. We're having another big snow, but hey, I got places to go, right? It's kinda icy on the roads. I managed to slide when I was turning into a driveway and bang into a rock. A big rock. Ice. Not so good. So the poor minivan is once again going to be spending quality time in the body shop. Nobody hurt, yes it's drivable, but--well, crap.
Six months, yesterday. It has been a long week. I expended energy that wasn't actually extra on a crisis Wed., and then paid for it, so on the whole, it's been on the rough side. I am remembering things that I really, really need to, like getting prescriptions filled, but having a very hard time with random other things (did I forget to feed the dog, or is she just being a pig today? No idea.).
The kids seem to be in a pretty good groove, thank goodness. Littlest is really liking our experiment with new math stuff (three whole days, yes I know it's not going to last, but the main thing is to keep child doing it, preferably without child bursting into tears). Oldest took the National Latin Exam (which is where I was driving us) (how perfect! minutes before test, be in car crash! most excellent!) and has earned a little slacker time, after working on elaborate costume for hours and then re-doing the proofs for the final exam that didn't save correctly somehow. Ack. Middle is charming me utterly by being ga-ga over AP Biology. Favorite thing, I kid you not--loves this course. It's good, but honestly, sometimes it's what the kid is doing on Saturday mornings.
Time for this:
There. Much better. Finally remembered to update my sidebar (applause! applause!) and put new answers to the Secret Pal questions. I then accidentally deleted the start of the html for the whole blog template, but managed to fix it - go, me. Rah. So, phew. Hello, everyone; nice to see the gang this week.
All rightie, then; nothing much going on Chez Weasel, but there's a rather spectacular something to show you: My SP9 pal made and sent me this gorgeousness. It arrived in yesterday's mail. I am stunned. It is lovely. I've managed to get a not-too-blurry shot of it, which unfortunately skewed the color pretty completely. The actual color is more like orange marmalade, or an orange marmalade cat. Thank you so much, Lorena. I went to a kick-off event for a candidate for selectman Friday night. The candidate is a person I've known for a long time. She's a serious, sensible woman and a hard worker who's done one too many huge advisory committee reports, so the current plan is, I gather, to compel implementation of some of the laudable things she's worked on for the last several years. A nice evening, though I seem to be getting mistaken for a Republican lately--my Republican friends think, oh, she's rational, interested in sustainable policy choices, ergo Republican! Wrong, guys. Sorry and all. Anyhow, a lot of folks seem to think I should be in office again in some capacity or other. The trouble with that, of course--which I told folks--is that I have these huge gaping holes in my brain, still. Something to mull for later, perhaps. The public policy geekiness could get pretty bad.
Well, the Celtics lost spectacularly for us: 80 - 111. We spent a good part of the game wondering if they'd keep the gap within twenty. Then within thirty. As some quick math will tell you, they lost by 31 points. If this isn't a serious play for the coveted Worst in the NBA title, I don't know what is. Seriously, what kind of basketball team drives inside and then tosses out to someone at the 3-point line? repeatedly? as in, every time they manage to get through the opponent's defense? I think they must have decided the heck with the game and let's all just practice our three point shots. God's teeth.
What was Big Fun Indeed was hanging out with Carole (& Dale), Amber, and Julie, and having a good dinner in the spiffy club place (thank you again neighbor dude!). This was a good night out, hot dog or no hot dog. We knit. We gabbed. We ate and drank. Good stuff. Of course, after the game looked totally hopeless, Amber & I were knitting in the stadium, too. Didn't bother anyone; there weren't many left in the stands to be bothered. Thank you for coming out, ladies and gent - it was a pleasure.
Speaking of knitting, I have at last gotten the camera and the USB thingie and the laptop and my knitting to be in the same place! Yay! Work in progress includes the STR package's yarn and sock pattern coming along; the seemingly endless Austermann socks; and my clapotis. Some fun, huh, Bambi? (Bambi nods gamely, after having gone WHAM onto the ice with his chin) The pics are in no particular order, you will notice. This is because I am temporarily unable to deal with the gigantic string of html crap that Blogger now assigns to uploaded photos. Cutting and pasting the html is the only reliable way I have found to move photos. Alas, I cannot make out the html well enough to place the photos in a way which pleases me - I am stuck with whatever Blogger means by "left," "middle," and "right." Which tends to vary with the size of the image. Grrr.
Other major accomplishments for the week include cleaning the bathrooms; clearing all the clean clothes off my bed and discarding a bagful of things I no longer wear (for example, the leggings and oversized tops that I wore while pregnant with DD#2, who is now 12); and installing coat hooks in the back hall. The hooks in particular were a big thing for me. I had to find the drill, find all the screws that fasten the hooks, not lose the screws, try (and fail, as it happened) to find a correctly sized drill bit, and find two different kinds of screwdriver in the correct sizes. This took some while. I know as surely as I know my times tables that there exists somewhere in the house and/or barn a vast cornucopia of drill bits for different purposes, in several handy drill bit containers. Could I find this treasure? Of course not. My house eats things when it notices that I am looking for them. Then other things that I was looking for on another day pop back into existence--today's example was the disappearance of the two exacto knives and the re-appearance of the Spring Forward cardigan pattern. Ah, well. I am learning to accept the capricious bounty of the house gremlins and cope as best I can.
At any rate, the larger point (if there is one) is that I am beginning to be able to think of things, like, gee we keep tossing all the coats on the one bannister and the floor--maybe I should put the coat hooks back up! What is more amazing is that I did not completely forget this idea after it came to me. Baby steps. And just all kinds of fun.
Sock geek: My Socks that Rock shipment came Friday! So exciting! I immediately sat down to blog it but then checked Lynne’s blog; she kindly points out that some people may not have received their parcels yet, and declines to spoil the lovely surprise. Rats. Correct, of course. So I refrained. The fact that I am ridiculously pleased with my “sock yarn of the month” parcel is prima facie sock geekitude evidence.
Sci-fi geek: DD#2 (aka Geek in Training) and I watched Battlestar Galactica together Sunday night, and....OMG! OMG! OMG! I can’t believe it. (spoiler alert) How can they kill off Cara? Now what is poor Lee going to do for pining angst? Um, okay, maybe stay married to his perfectly fine, long-suffering wife. Uh, okay. Why is this such a big deal again, Weasel? It just is! It’s important! (Note: tv has become a lot more important to me.)
Celtics geek: I am hugely pleased that we’ve gotten a group together to go to the Celtics game Wednesday night. At least I think we have. You know, since I started trying to get this together, the C’s haven’t lost a game. Maybe I shoulda done this earlier in the season? It’s a bit harsh of the NYTimes to go on quite as much as they did about how embarrassing it was that the Nets lost to the C’s in overtime, the Weasel notes grumpily. The Weasel also notes grimly that the Celtics now have a cheerleader squad. I’d always thought that authentic Boston spirit would be best served by a bunch of gung-ho women from Dorchester, preferably in grungy old t-shirts. My idea would be for the visiting teams’ Extremely Pretty squads to do their thing, and then the decidedly not pretty but True Believers Boston bunch to randomly yell things like, “Lakers suck!” But that’s just me.
Internet geek: I had a great time Saturday night, hanging out online with the Daily Kos Saturday night losers’ club. The topic was “crushes of one’s youth,” and, well, an awful lot of bad 70’s pop music came up. Which we proceeded to quote at great length at each other for about an hour. It was a hoot.
Accounting geek: I love doing my taxes. I always have. I understand intellectually that this is kind of a disturbing thing. But I’m genuinely thrilled that my financial advisor talked to dh’s employers’ accountants and managed to get a corrected 1099 issued for me. Maybe I should become a CPA. I positively relish the prospect of filling in my Schedule A. I’m not a well woman.
Municipal government geek: (This one might be the scariest, people, so avert your eyes if you feel the need.) I still get info bulletin emails from the Mass. Dept. of Revenue, just because I used to need the information when I was on the town finance committee and don’t mind getting them enough to figure out how to unsubscribe. I recently spent an evening downloading current and prior year spreadsheets for state education aid for local governments, and analyzing population trends statewide and comparing it to funding levels. It was really fun.
Okay, Carole wants to know when this game thing is. Basically they offer the package for any game, but next Wed. at 7:30 the C's play the Houston Rockets - that's March 7. They start at cheap seats and it's available for nicer ones, too, $99 for four tickets, four drinks, four hot dogs, and some coupon for the gift shop or something ('cause we gals just gotta shop, right?) (good grief).
So, gals, wanna go? If there's four of us, it's a go, I'm thinkin'.
I've heard about this Mercury retrograde crap, and it's probably a lot of hooey, but I'm still going to use it as an excuse for why I haven't yet attempted to replace my hard drive. Yeah, it's because Mercury is retrograde. Yeah, right. It's because I'm chicken, really, but y'all can keep a secret, can't you?
The Celtics are finally not sucking too much. This comes as a relief. I'm sad about Dennis Johnson's death last week, and a little frustrated that I can't reminisce about that glorious starting five with anybody (DJ, McHale, Parrish, Larry, and Danny...ah, those were the days...) that I'm likely to run into today. Um...the C's beat the Knicks last night. The Knicks are sucking almost as much as the Celtics this year. Still, a win is a win. I'm trying to decide if I want to try and get a small gang of women together for the Rockets game next week - the beloved Green sucks so much this year that they're running promotions to try and get people to show up for the games, and one of them is a Girls Night Out thing. We'd get hot dogs, basically. Anyone?
I still haven't sat down to figure out precisely where Charlotte's Web went wrong - it's one stitch, it should be easy to find, but I haven't been able to concentrate for a few days. Soon, I hope. Socks are progressing. We had a fine ol' time at Javaroom last night, helped along by the new wine bar, I suspect.
I'm going to bitch about the new Blogger now for a sec: I used to get comments to the blog forwarded to my email, and then I could reply to you guys. Now I just get the comments with no email info for you, and it's a pain in the ass. So I'm sorry that I haven't been responding, Carole and Lucia and Lynne and Carla and I think Suzanne and everybody - it's frustrating and I'm clearly going to have to do my least favorite thing: RTFM*. Sigh. Sorry. Please bear with me.
Crankily yours, Crazed Weasel
*"RTFM" = Read The F*cking Manual; standard help desk advice.
