Bunnies

Shopping for fabric at The Family Thrift Store in Corpus Christi yesterday...

I was digging through the piles of odd stuff.  Black glitter felt.  Baby zoo animal flannel.  Orange polyester.  Eight yards of green mosquito net.  Four quilt tops.  A hundred baby blankets. 

Partner hands me a bag.  It's a bunch of little balls of white yarn.  Each ball in a little plastic bag, all the bags in a bigger bag.  No tags evident.  The bag is stapled shut, and yes, I know, people open and/or poke holes in those bags all the time, but I don't like to do that.  It seems tacky.  The price on the bag is $2.92US.  Some of the white yarn is discolored in places.  I think I'd have to wash it.  I almost put it back, but in an impulse I take it.  Along with the four yards of red tulle, the green mosquito net, and several different bags of jammie flannel.  

When I bust open the bag of yarn at home, I find that every wee ball is tagged.  ACA Supreme 100% Pure Angora, Made in France.  Huh.  I say.  Thinking this is pretty rich.  

Twenty-seven, ten gram (or 1/3 ounce) balls of white Angora that is so fluffy and soft.  So incredibly soft.  At some point in the life of this yarn, it was marked at $1/ball.  So my $2.92 was a steal.  Only it was even more of a steal than I initially thought because I see ten gram balls of angora yarn on the internet priced at anywhere from five to seven dollars.  Per.  Ball.

I bought $150 worth of yarn for three bucks.  Knock me over with a feather.  

Whuddya think I should make with it?

About 800 yards of worsted weight angora.  Not enough for a sweater, I don't think.  

Hat?  Scarf?  Pidge?  Fuzzy bunny from Knitty Gritty?

The Christmas Post

I hope everyone has had some good cheer in the past few weeks, or that good cheer will be coming your way in the next few.  

We had a lovely Christmas, though the general level of enthusiasm (and consumption of spirits) was dampened by an uninvited guest.  RSV, for those who don't know, is a nasty little bugger, and I would highly recommend that you avoid it if at all possible.  

There were many lovely presents all around, and, thanks to my father's shredding machine and his mad packing skills, there was snow.  Paper snow.  In the living room.  Despite our best efforts at snow removal, it can still be found drifting and swirling in the corners and under the furniture.  The snow is likely to persist until June at least.  

The invited guests have all returned home.  Two of them absconded with all of our children, leaving Partner and I in our snowy house with our stuffy heads and more food than should be legally possible for two people to consume in a month.  For the next week we will try to figure out what to do with our temporarily-childless selves.  

No, don't worry.  We'll find something to do I'm sure.  At the very least, we will work up some masquerade costumes and some pastries for the New Year's Eve party we're attending next Wednesday.  Our first grown-up New Year's Eve party for nearly ten years.  I'm dizzy with excitement.  Or perhaps that's the cold medicine.  Either way it's a strangely nice feeling.  

A photo of me from Sonar X4's birthday just to show that I'm not yet as round as my matryoshka representation.  And yes, those are candles, Christmas lights, and a snow globe in the fireplace behind me.  I'm not sure why we have a fireplace because, trust me, you don't want to light an actual wood-burning fire in the fireplace here, even on Christmas.  Not even for the atmosphere.  Which reminds me of a tiny rant about people here who want a fire in the fireplace so bad that they run their air conditioners to offset the heat produced.  But I'll spare you that little bit of vitriol in honor of Christmas, and also in honor of not being rude to those of you who live someplace where a fire in the fireplace would not only be a lovely cozy thing but also a necessarily heat-producing thing.  

Now, I'm off to begin fulfilling my agenda, which begins with an important item:  hibernate until virus leaves.  

The Christmas Eve Post

I have some cool friends.  I mean, how many people would immortalize my family in Matryoshka???  Right down to actual clothing that we wear, and though you cannot see it in this particular picture, my silver nose ring.  Super.

Thank you so much, Kippy.    

The December 23rd Post

I know.  Too many posts on one day.  Why not just make one big post and be done with it.  Because it's my blog and I'll do it how I want to.  Besides, I've been sick in a house full of people for days and I'm feeling just a little silly and gratuitous in the sudden quiet.  

And because a serious face would be neither possible nor desirable:

The December 22nd Post

A gratuitous post to make up for some of the unbalanced visual evidence of Sonar growth and loveliness. 

Eight (and a half).  I could just eat him for breakfast.

The December 21st Post

To make up for lost time, several blogs in one day.  

Introducing Sonar X4.  Happy Birthday kiddo.  Just don't forget that none of the other children have ever (EVER) been allowed to ride their new bike in the house.  I hope you enjoyed it, it won't happen again.  

Lest you think I'm sitting around crying in my muffins, Part 2

Sonar X3 in the kinder, acting shy. Dead camera batteries prevented a companion picture of Sonar X5.  Apparently I am photographically challenged this week.  

***

Yesterday at lunch, I took up my room parent duties and hauled special snacks and gift bags up to Sonar X5's class.  Sonar X3 (who shall be named thusly for the very last time today) joined me and proceeded to hide in the classroom library the whole time, apparently undone by the unpredictably giddy behavior of the kindergartners.  I don't blame him.  

To make sure that the very last nerve of the teacher was completely frayed by the end of the day, each child was belled and filled up with pizza and cupcakes.   

In an effort to burn off the sugar high the children played musical chairs, danced (that "Tony Chestnut" song is hilarious), and then wobbled slinkies all around the room.  then we crammed all of their collective loot into their backpacks and sent them out to parents, frosting still smeared on their cheeks.  

Good fun was had by all.  

Lest you think I'm sitting around crying into my muffins, Part 1

Note:  This was supposed to be a recent picture of Sonar X8 in his Christmas getup.  For some reason that other one won't load.  So instead you get this delightful substitute from five-hundred years ago.  He's still this cute sometimes.  

Sonar X8 and his classmates have recently read The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo.  Lovely book.  Like many good books, especially ones for children, this one has been made into a movie, which opens in U.S. theaters today.  

Today also happens to be the last day of school before the two-and-a-half week Winter Holiday, and an early dismissal day at that.  The classes are having their holiday parties and puzzle exchanges and chaos-inducing whatnot.  

The third grade teachers decided that the coincidence of all of these things--book, movie, party day--was just too much to pass up and gave a call to our lovely, independently-owned, local movie theater and arranged a nine a.m. screening of The Tale of Despereaux for the entire third grade.  

To make this work, the third graders are having a holiday breakfast, and skipping the holiday assembly (a performance of Christmas standards by the fourth graders).  First thing this morning, they got hopped up on donuts, candy canes and cookies (and yes, milk, OJ, and pigs in a blanket), then 120 third graders and their teachers and aides boarded yellow dogs to drive a half mile to the theater.  

(I wonder about the choice to use buses for this trip, since the buses have to drive about a half mile from the school to the theater, but if the kids walked through the municipal park between the school and theater, they'd have to trek about a quarter of a mile.  Perhaps they were worried about the weather.  Or potential escapees.  No telling.)  

As we speak, Sonar X8 and his classmates are among the first children to see the new film, a fact that they giggled about so deliciously, as if they were getting away with something.  While at the theater, they'll get a fresh injection of popcorn and soda and then go back to school for a nutritious lunch.  Ha.  

Supposedly the teachers are going to haul them all back to the classrooms after that for some kind of "Compare and Contrast" activity.  Should they attempt this activity (as opposed to sending them outside for recess for the rest of the day) I think they might need to be certified.  Should they succeed, I think I'll have to send them a bottle of bourbon to sooth their frayed nerves.  

Luckily they'll have sixteen, third-grader-free days to recover.  

Sending some love across the miles

Whoever said that food isn't love didn't know what he was talking about.  

This is a yellow ruler and a batch of my family's Irish Soda Bread recipe.  I can't account for the ruler, but the recipe has been passed down through who-knows-how-many generations of women, each adding, altering and tweaking to her preference.  Each woman (and, I can hope, a few men, perhaps) made up this bread to sustain, warm, comfort, praise, love, or generally provide for their families and friends and bake sale goers.  None of these people, apparently, thought to cut down the recipe.  

I am sworn to secrecy as to the exact recipe, but I must give you a general idea of the scale of it, just in case the picture doesn't make it clear.  That is 12 cups of flour and 4+ cups of milk.  There is a pound of raisins in there, and a pound of butter.  Uh, and some other stuff (because that is starting to sound too much like a recipe and old Irish women are rolling over in their graves in preparation for haunting me).  But one of the other things is Caraway Seed. 

That's it!  I promise not to say any more.  Settle down, Mumsy.* 

Anyway, I made a batch of this last night.  One regular bread loaf, one round in the cast iron skillet, a dozen regular-sized muffins, and a billion mini-muffins.  They make absolutely delightful accompaniments to tea, either at breakfast, or perhaps in the afternoon, or right before bed.  They are just sweet enough to sub as dessert, but not so sweet that they can't be a hearty breakfast.  It freezes well, and keeps forever on the counter even without freezing.  Just add a dab of butter to bring it back from the brink of staleness. 

I learned this recipe from my mother.  So did my sister, though I have no proof that she has ever independently chosen to make up a batch.  As I was stirring the batter, which takes a lot of muscle, I was thinking of my mother.  This bread is all tied up with the best kind of memories of her.  I was remembering funny things, and tea, and being covered in flour ahead of St. Patrick's Day, as we made dozens of loaves of bread for some reason or other.  Good memories.  

I was thinking of my step-father.  It was from his family that this recipe came to us.  He loved a slice of soda bread or a couple of muffins with a dab of butter and a cup of piping  hot tea (Red Rose, mostly, and he had the little figurines to prove it).  Also good memories.  

When the first bits came out of the oven (the minis, which bake in 25-30 minutes), I broke one in half and took a bite.  As the muffin touched my tongue, I had the most intense, reflexive, emotional wave wash over me.  That one bite of muffin made me weep.  Deep, soul-tugging sobs as all of these feelings just bubbled up and out.  

I'm fine.  It felt good to cry about those things that feel so far away most of the time.  

It was a heady reminder of the power of food, and of traditions, and of the things that connect us to one another even when we're not together, or not even alive.  

So, like many women before me, I baked this bread with love and care, mixed and baked it as best I could, with attention to every detail and nuance of the recipe (I've doubled the baking powder and soda, as well as the vanilla; sorry Mumsy), to feed to my Partner and my children, of course.  But I made it with the intent to wrap it carefully (I used ziplocks and bubblewrap and a beautiful piece of fabric) to mail to my brother and sister, far though they may be this Christmas.  

I hope that it will last them from Christmas to the New Year.  The hardest time for remembering in our family.  

This New Year's Eve, it will be ten years since our father died of a gunshot wound to the head.  His soul, I hope, is at peace.  The soul of our mother is more in question.  My brother and sister have been somewhat battered on the oceans of life since then, and in whatever way you send out messages to the universe, I wonder if you could send them a little bit of peace this year as they contemplate this past decade.  Perhaps we can all add to their bread in bringing them a little warmth and calm this year of all years.  

***

*Mumsy was my lovely Irish grandmother.  She would have a genuflection and some very colorful blessing to add to a reference to the dead.  How about this one: May her soul rest in the loving bosom of Jesus.  Yes I think we all need a loving bosom of one kind or another.  

Recent Lessons

Lesson 1: Occam's Sewing Razor

When the squeak on the sewing machine becomes so maddening, and the top thread is breaking every five minutes, before I stick my head into the partially dismantled, Running sewing machine, I should consider making sure that the needle is installed in the correct orientation.  That didn't solve the squeak.  Still had to stick my head in the machine to find that.  But now I Know.  

Lesson 2:  My eyes are bigger than my hands

I am enamored of the art of much knitting.  Sometimes I see a really incredible design and I must try it.  Often it's about Trying a particular technique, a particular decrease, a clever little design element.  Lately (i.e. for the past several months), the projects I have fallen in love with have been either large or complicated (or in two cases, both).  This all by itself slowed down the knitting considerably.  On top of that, I got myself into a sort finger/hand/wrist/arm/shoulder spiral that is difficult to get myself out of.  This brought the knitting to a screaming halt.  So there are three lovely, but oh so far from finished, big and/or complicated projects staring at me, begging to be finished, but I can knit no more than a few minutes a day, if that, without bringing about the need for icepacks and narcotics.  

This is not fun.  This is not right.  It has also led to more sewing than knitting this Christmas season.  

Also, these projects are also intended for other people.  Other people who know about them and hope to actually hold them in their hands someday.  I feel an obligation to finish them, which makes the knitting feel more like Work than like this cool hobby that I do because I get a little thrill from taking a long piece of string and knotting it just so over and over (and over and over) and Voila! Clever, three-dimensional, useful object!

So I have learned that I really do prefer simple designs that I can hold in my hands, carry in my wee bag.  That aren't huge.  This is what I really really prefer.  Now, if I can just get through the big complicated things, so I can get to some small simple things.  

Lesson 3: Should vs. Could, a lesson from Billy Jean King

I saw some round-table discussion on You Tube or something.  Oh, I remember, it was from Oprah, and O was chatting with Billy Jean King, Maria Shriver, and Gloria Steinem.  I forget what they were talking about, but Ms. King said that one of the ways she overcomes stress and guilt and all such self-defeating sorts of thinking is to replace "should" with "could" when it pops up in her head.  I.e. I should scrub the fingerprints off of the lightswitch plate in the kitchen.  vs.  I could scrub the fingerprints....  "Should" is a do it or feel bad about it kind of word, whereas "could" is a word of potential and, more importantly, choice.  As in, I could choose to do it or not.  

I was thinking that the holidays should be happy.  Ding ding ding.  The holidays 'could' be happy.  Which is a weird one, because either one suggests that the holidays aren't actually happy, when really they sort of are, but they're also sort of stressful.  But the source of that stress may be trying to live up to some idealized fantasy of what it 'should' be.  If we consider the idealized fantasy as something that 'could' be if we had infinite time and resources and and and, it becomes much easier to let that ideal go and still be satisfied with what the holidays actually are.  Which in my case, is a time when I get together with at least some of the people that I dearly love, or at least touch base with many of the important people in my life.  

More people 'could' choose to not worry about whether they have the most perfectly decorated tree, or the most Christmas lights on the block, or the perfect gift, and just look around and breathe in what is already around them.  More people could.  Yes, indeedy.  

*smooch*

Attempted Christmas Card Picture, a photo-essay

Two minutes on an early-December afternoon...

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Did you catch the penis joke and the Richard Nixon face?  

Many thanks

I am, perhaps, a few days late on my thankfulness list here, but I think it's probably ok to be thankful on other days of the year besides Thanksgiving Day.  I am thankful for a lot of things this year, and every year, but I'll focus for the sake of brevity.

I am thankful for my Partner, who is not only warm and sexy, but knows just exactly how to make me feel good.  He's also a handy reader of books, happy to discuss whatever he's reading or I'm reading in ways that are fun and thoughtful.  

I am thankful for Sonar X3, who not only has a lovely spot of quiet time every afternoon, but is among the cutest readers on the planet.  He has proven to me that reading need not be a sedentary activity, and can be accomplished quite well while rolling back and forth on the floor.  

I am thankful for Sonar X5, who, besides being a pretty adorable reader himself, is also capable of working out puzzles in the most delicious way.  Something in that brain of his just seems to 'get' puzzles in a way that I think is fabulous.  His patience is also a good model for all of us.

I am thankful for Sonar X8, who last night begged to stay up to finish a book, not because he had to for school or something, but because he was "this close" and he just had to know how it turned out.  Susceptible to this urge myself now and then, what could I do but say yes?  And though I often grouch at it, the bouncy, indirect way he moves through the world gives me a little joy when I can remember to lighten up.  

There is something so incredibly ingenious about the acquisition of reading skills and I am so thrilled and giddy to be able to witness this process in my children.  I laugh and tell them that the world won't be the same now that they can read.  They look at me askance, and roll their eyes, of course, but that's ok.  Someday I hope they can watch someone else learn to read and to know the sheer joy of it.  

We had a lovely Thanksgiving celebration with family.  There was good food, fun games, and just the right number of days cramped together with extended family.  A field mouse tried to join us for dinner, I finished a kilt sock (pictures soon), and whether she realizes it or not, my mother-in-law made me feel like I was one of "hers," a feeling that makes me feel warm and happy.  

If you had the opportunity to celebrate Thanksgiving recently, I hope it was survivable at least--though cozy and full of love would be better.