Personally, I Blame the Time Change

I found these hiding in the front garden.  November.  Rosebuds.  Nothing should surprise me today.

Our family elected Phillip the Time Changer In Chief many years ago, when I arbitrarily decided it should be his job.  Not one of my more deeply considered moves:  How many clocks can the dude with ADD get around to changing before he sees something shiny?  The number varies, but it's never 100% of the clocks.  Which means that whichever room you are in, if you want to know the time, you have to go to one or more adjacent spaces and compare what their various clocks say, and then maybe take an average.  Not ideal.  This usually goes on until, A: I get fed up with it and synchronize all the household timepieces; or B: I forget the problem exists and show up late or early for something.  It's a very bad system, but it's the one we have.  I think Phillip and I may be counting on the Smallies to one day resolve the issue by taking over for us, but neither of us has actually said so.

I'm fresh from teaching at the Nordic Heritage Museum last Saturday.  Only when I busted out the laptop, digital projector, handouts and samples, did I realize that I left the power cord for the projector at my last venue: Grand Fir Lodge, Middle of Nowhere, USA. 

I always find it so exhilarating when the wheels fall off the wagon like that.  Not unlike the moment when you hear the anti-lock brakes engage on your car, or the first few seconds after your purse has gone missing.  They're Oxygen Optional Moments: You've stopped breathing anyway.  It's extremely difficult to teach to a powerpoint presentation when no one can see the powerpoint presentation.  Note to self: Stop leaving a trail of technical ephemera across the country if you are going to let your teaching be dependent upon it.

Lucky for me, the Museum has its very own digital projector: Mischief Managed; Crisis Averted.  We made mittens and talked about things Nordic, and a happy time was had by all.

Today I have two sick children, a week's worth of groceries to procure, a trip to the pharmacy to work in, and 68 swatches to make.  It feels like I can hear that irritating song: "68 bottles of beer on the wall, 68 swatches to make..."  I'm trying not to think about it, but you know how it is once an irritating song gets into your head?  I'm taking suggestions for alternative irritating songs to replace it with.  Feel free to submit your favorite.

Have yarn, will travel.

Greetings, Gentle Readers!  Thank you for your patience while I dropped off the grid.  As you can see, I've been on the road for a bit.  And yes, TSA did make me open this and explain it; thanks for asking.  They also siezed my toothpaste.  Bastards.

Last week I jetted to exotic Zionsville, Indiana, where I met the delightful and talented Pam Mourouzis, my editor at Wiley, and the equally gifted Matt Bowen, who made all the the photographs for my new book:

Backstage at the photo shoot for a How To Knit book is every bit as glamorous as you would imagine: Wind Machines, Lip Gloss, Rock Music.  Okay, I lied about the wind machines, but we did listen to music, and there was some Chap Stick.

My job at the photo shoot was to make weird little pieces of knitting which demonstrate the things I talk about on each page of the book, and to do it at lightning speed between takes.  Then Matt would shoot my hands in action, knitting on the little swatches, and showing the techniques.  And no, I did not know that I was going to be a hand model when I arrived at the shoot.  We who fail to manicure salute you.  I apologize in advance for my cuticles.

In order for Matt to shoot my hands as they would look to a person knitting, I had to sit with my body crammed under a table as tightly as possible, with my elbows propped up on a stack a of books.  Then Matt would stand behind me, with the big digital camera just about in my ear, and remind me for the ten-millionth time that I had to move my head out of the way of the shot.  Then to comply, I would lean my head over on my left shoulder as far as humanly possible, without blocking the light (a big umbrella pillowy thing on the other side of me), or dropping the stitch I was supposed to be demonstrating.  Nuthin to it.  Babies do it.

After the first day, I could not for the life of me figure out how I had strained the muscles in my hip joints.  Then we figured out that the uneven studio floor was preventing me from cramming my chair sufficiently far under the table by trapping the wheels on the chair I was in.  Duh.  And I thought the chief occupational hazard of hand modeling would be hangnails.

Muscle strain aside, I learned so much, and had such a great time.  We worked our guts out, and there were only a couple of times when I looked at my writing and asked what sort of hack would come up with such drivel.

I'm back home now, still working on the last two projects in the book, starting the 100+ swatches for its stitch dictionary (no reason to panic; I have a full 2 weeks before those are due), preparing for a weekend with the Acorn Street knitters st Suncadia Lodge, creating a new exclusive for the Madrona Winter Retreat 2012, and if I'm really lucky, doing some laundry.  I don't like my odds on that last, which is unfortunate news for my lingerie situation.  I'd really rather not have to turn anything inside out to get through this week.  Phillip starts a new job teaching night school today, which will take him out of our equation two nights a week.  Lindsay is training hard for a skating competition two weeks hence (for which I am pretty sure a costume will be required), and also has a band concert this week.  Campbell just started guitar lessons, and has no less than 3 Cub Scouts events. 

I'm writing about all this, not to complain, but as proof that it really is all going on simultaneously.  In my dotage, I know I'll look back on this time, wonder how it went by so quickly, and then question how and whether we really did cram all those things into it. 

Message to the future Me:  Yeah, all that really did happen at the same time.  No, you are not making it up.  And yes, you do deserve to be the weird old lady you have become.  Now go take a nap.  You earned it 30 years ago.
 

Some Days are Smooth, Some Days are Chunky

The story goes like this:  Once upon a time, my mother and father had to attend a child-free function,  which, when you have Four children, can be something of a challenge.  They called upon my father's mother, who, if unenthusiastic, was brave, and at least close by.  Ruth's own children had numbered only 2, and had been raised the old-fashioned way, with live-in help, and then sent away to boarding school before getting old enough to become too obnoxious.  At least that's the way the her 2 children tell it; as child #5, all of this was substantially before my time.

Anyway, Ruth somehow sustained the evening unharmed, and my parents returned home to find all four offspring tucked safely in their beds.  But Ruth had split.  Made a break for it.  Gone while the gettin' was good.  In fact, there was no trace of her having been there at all, except for one thing:  A note scrawled in an unsteady hand, proclaimed

"You're out of Peanut Butter.  Heaven Help You."

Since then, the level of the peanut butter in the pantry has been the unofficial gauge of health, wealth and fortitude, for everybody in my family.  We say to each other "Yeah, but it could be worse - it's not like you're out of peanut butter...".  Like having a full tank of gas, or a $20 bill, or a clean, ironed shirt in the closet, a full jar of peanut butter makes makes me feel like the minimum standards are being maintained.  Not rich, you understand, but prepared.  Capable.  Self-sufficient enough to handle whatever hand the Universe is planning to deal next.

This morning, Campbell's backpack (which suffered a massive juice-bottle breech yesterday and had to go into the washing machine) was still wet.  And worse than that, it had gone into the washing machine containing not less than 24 unsharpened pencils.  And the cardboard box which held them.  The carnage confronting me inside the washing machine, with less than 7 minutes till the bus came, was indescribable.  I abandoned the whole gory mess and hooked Cam up with a knitting bag to carry his lunch and homework in.  Lunch.  That I still had not made at T-minus-seven minutes till the bus.  I flew to the kitchen at Mach 2 and assembled bread, juice bottles, goldfish crackers and apple slices in a cheetah-like blur.  And that's when it happened.  I heard my grandmother's voice, bell-like and serene: 

"You're out of Peanut Butter.  Heaven Help You."

In my panic, I think I may have packed my children Nutella and mayonnaise sandwiches.  On whole wheat.  Mother. Of. The. Year.

Without peanut butter, the balance of the Universe is compromised.  Without peanut butter, the wheels abruptly fall off the wagon.  Without peanut butter, you start looking around for the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.    I have failed to maintain minimum standards. 

I know it's not actually the end of the world, but I'm thinking this could be one of the seven signs.  There are things you should be able to take for granted, and peanut butter is one of them.  I'm going to try to put this behind me.  Bootstrap myself into this day and carry on without further panic.  And, armed with tweezers and a vacuum cleaner, I'll try to extract the pencil shrapnel from my washing machine. 

Sometimes there are sentences I just can't believe I've just written.