Knitters-Knitters

Six Lights

The thing about hosting Thanksgiving is that you don't remember details of the event as clearly as the guests do, and the recovery period is longer than you'd think.  I'm just going to share some moments that stand out in my post-vacation memory more clearly than others, in no particular order:

1) Olive finding the box that contained the turkey roasting bags and pointing emphatically at the picture of the turkey on it, then doing the sign for I want.

2) Giving Rachel and Seth a tour of Ashraf's house, then descending the back stairs and seeing the pan of foodge Rachel had brought in without my noticing.  My first thought was that the Foodge Fairy had been here.

3) LB's terrible...dyspepsia on Friday, which culminated in my being sent out at 7pm to purchase an instrument of dyspepsia relief.  My reluctance to drive at night was only heightened by my inability to get out of the garage without scraping the passenger door of the car and clipping off what remained of the side-view mirror.

4) Arriving at the pharmacy section of the grocery store and being ignored by a clerk on the telephone for about five minutes.  Then he slammed down the receiver, glared at me and said, "I QUIT.  I can't answer another question."

5) LB telephoning me on my drive home to tell me that the dyspepsia had resolved itself.

6) Seeing Changeling on television last night.  

I do so love to hate Clint Eastwood movies, and this one does not disappoint.  The thrill of describing its badness to LB almost makes up for the 2 hours and 5 minutes of my life lost.  In several places it reminded me of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode where Picard is held captive by the Cardassians (not the Kardashians--that's a much different episode).  The interrogator tries to get Picard to say he sees three lights in the room when there are, in fact, four.  Not a new story premise when TNG used it, but well-written and well-acted.

If you're entertaining fleeting desires to see Changeling, desist at once and watch that episode of TNG instead. See any episode of TNG instead.  In fact, see any Clint Eastwood movie instead.

When you read this it sounds like watching a bad movie on HBO was the most memorable part of the Thanksgiving holiday, but it wasn't--it's just the most recent.

In fact, I'd say my feeling of being on sedation vacation didn't end until early this afternoon, when I got a call from the Judaics teacher at Keshet saying that the school's Siddur ceremony was coming up and did Olive have a Hebrew name?  When I told her no, she offered to come up with one based on the possible ways to say Olive Pearl in Hebrew and Olive's personality.  I appreciated this and asked her what Siddur was, but her explanation assumed a lot more prior knowledge than I have and I didn't want to admit the depth of my ignorance take up more of her time.  So it's off to Google for me.

It makes sense, doesn't it?  The holiday isn't really over until you've got homework.

Everybody Relax...Rachel Brought Foodge

Here's my adorable niece Rachel posing with foodge, a Thanksgiving tradition in Perlmanland.  Most of you know this as "fudge" and the recipe can be found on the back of the marshmallow fluff jar.  (I think there's a law that at least one thing served at Thanksgiving should involve marshmallow fluff.)

Rachel wins the "came the farthest" award, joining us from San Diego.  As background, Rachel and Seth are Abel's children.

Here's My Nephew, the Doctor with Anatole.  There's a long age range in Perlman counsinry.  Seth is the eldest at 30...

...and Baley Anabel will be the youngest, due in January.  Shhhh.... don't tell Olive.  She's been the youngest for a long time now.

Did you notice how I snuck my future niece's name in there?  If you look at it written, you can see her name comes about as close to Abel as one can safely go without, you know, saddling a girl with the name Abel.

Here's Andra proving that the maternity sweater looks better on her than it does on LB.

A lot better.

I didn't take very many pictures, but here's a passel of girls.  5.5 girls, to be exact.  I'm pretty sure you know who everyone is by now, but in case you're new here, meet Andra, Olive, Agatha, Sabina and Daisy.

And...I finished a Baley garment!  A Dale of Norway sweater: Rutelilje from Dale Baby Booklet #129.  I used Isager Alpaca 2 for the main color, and oddments of Shetland for the yoke.  This sweater required me to use my Magic Loop skills, and was knit on 2.5 and 2.25mm needles.  It's Ravelried here and needs lots of hearts to make up for the hole in my right index finger from using such weensie needles.

Not that I'm hinting around or anything.

King of the Wild Frontier

Today was the second graders' Thanksgiving Pageant at Olive's school, featuring both the Keshet kids (all special needs) and the Solomon Schechter (neurotypical) children.  I went to see the performance along with the four middle Sullivans.

Olive marched onstage first with her aide, a trail of about thirty second graders right behind her.  For the first third of the performance (songs and recitations about Thanksgiving), Olive was a deer caught in the headlights: paralyzed by the sight of the audience, with mouth agape.  But by the time they did the ring-around-the-rosie dance for 'Tis a Gift to be Simple Olive was into it, spinning and marching in a circle with very little assistance, wearing her usual big smile.

Then the lead teacher told an interactive story about Davy Crockett going hunting.  The kids on the right were supposed to sing out Davy, Davy Crockett whenever the teacher said his name.  The kids in the center of the group were supposed to yell BANG! whenever the word "gun" was said.  And the kids on the left were supposed to shout Gobble! Gobble! whenever... you get the picture.

Being nonverbal, Olive was given a large posterboard sign to hold up with a picture of Davy Crockett.  This sign had a wooden handle.  The boy on her immediate right was also a Keshet student--about Olive's height and a good 15 pounds lighter--but he was verbal and could be counted on to sing Davy, Davy Crockett at the appropriate time.  Hence, he had no sign.

I think we can all see where this is heading.

The first time Davy Crockett's name was mentioned, Olive held her sign up proudly.  The second time, she held up her sign but you could see the idea beginning to take shape in her mind.  The third time the other children sang Davy, Davy Crockett, Olive lifted her sign high and brought it down on the head of the boy standing next to her.  I have to hand it to her aide--she managed to grab the sign away before Olive could give a second whack.  The boy was unperturbed, and I suspect that's why he was put next to Olive in the first place.

Olive held it together, but somewhere around the fourth verse of This Land is My Land, she remembered that she once had a big sign to hold and now, for reasons she considered arbitrary, she did not.  The crocodile tears started, but a quick hug from her favorite aide (Brittany always get hand-pats and waves at the end of the day) got her through it and she was able to remain onstage for the rest of the performance.

All in all, it was a much more dramatic and complete experience for Olive than last year's Thanksgiving Pageant at Hickory Point Elementary.  She laughed, she cried...

Agatha Knits

The baby knitting has been in full swing around here.  I've started at least 5 different projects, but the only one who's actually finished anything for her impending cousin is Agatha.  These are all her pieces, knit and blocked with no help and ravelried here:

From Simple Knits for Cherished Babies, this is the garter stitch cardigan in Debbie Bliss DK weight Rialto.  The buttons are from Farmhouse Fabrics.

These garter stitch booties (double squee) are from the same book, made with Dale of Norway "Stork" fingering weight cotton:

And this little hat is knit from Louet Gems 100% merino in coral, pattern from Baby Knits for Beginners by Debbie Bliss:

And the Winner is...

Badger, with 14 out of 16 correct.  Send me your address, Badge, and your yarn will be on its way. Second prize goes to Michelle, with 13 correct answers.  Michelle, send me your address for the Starbucks gift card.  Congratulations, ladies, and thank you for playing, everyone!

Now, for the answers:

1) True.When he was a few months old though, "Sabina" began croaking and grew dark patches on the insides of her froggy arms--something only male frogs do.  Oops! 

2) True.  Love me some G-Lo.

3) True.  Except I think those gals should probably come to the house at different times, so they don't band together and bring each other down.  Props to Miss Susan for throwing Charlie Sheen into the mix.  He really doesn't need my help, but he'd be fun to have around.

4) FALSE.  Agatha would have been named Almanzo.  I'm a TNG fan but never watched the original Star Trek. Denny Crane.

5) True.

6) True.  Now, I know several of you want to take me to task about Michael Jackson. Or you want to tell me that you're distantly related to Charles Lindbergh; he was fun at family gatherings and squirrels ate out of his hand because they sensed his hidden gentle spirit. 

Forgiveness is a funny thing.  Sometimes it creeps in when you fully intended to hold onto that grudge forever.  I've found that for me, when it comes to celebrities, whether or not I forgive them is based on three things:

a) Whether or not said celeb looked sorry in his or her televised apology.

b) My appreciation for said celeb's level of talent.

c) My understanding of said celeb's personal pain.

In other words, it's based almost entirely on whimsy and slanted media reporting.

7) True.  I watch more than my share of reality TV, but the premise of this show has never appealed to me.  I've seen the ads, and those people sleep and eat outdoors. Give me two Atlanta housewives in a full-on hair-pulling fight any day of the week.

8) FALSE.  I lasted 5 minutes into this movie, then had to take it out of the DVD player and rinse my brain out with Con-Air.  Almost everyone got this question right, which I find impressive since I don't think I've ever come out and said, "I hated The Notebook.  Shame on you, James Garner.  Shame!"

9) FALSE.  I have actually completed maybe 2-3 Debbie Bliss garments.

10) True.  I will never pound a nail into a wall with a sense of entitlement.

11) FALSE.  We honeymooned in Texas: Laredo, Corpus Christie and San Antonio. 

12) True.  Sorry, Tamara!  It makes LB sad, too.  He's a classical music reviewer and true aficionado who can turn on the radio, listen for 7 seconds, and say, "Hmmm... Pinchas Zuckerman in 1983.  Third string sounds a little loose."

13) FALSE.  I was called only once for jury duty, and got out of it by having a newborn.  Seriously, I had a child to get out of it.  You may call it shirking my civic duties, but I like to think of it as "Daisy."

14) FALSE.  This was not a fair question.   Even my mother got it wrong.  The scar goes from navel to *right* hip.  Sindi; you're correct--it's considered a vertical scar, but since I'm short, its path is more or less horizontal.

15) FALSE.  Gotta be a doctor to use one of those.  A sigmoidoscope wouldn't be of much use as a self-defense tool, unless you can get the perp to agree to lie on his side in a fetal position and remain perfectly still.  And then, really, what kind of perp would he be?

16) True.  I despise it.  Blot.  Eyesore.  Albatross.  McStatue.  Lest you think I dislike all landmarks built after the Milwaukee Casket Company (circa 1919), allow me to direct you eyes to The Calling, also on the lakefront.  Most people refer to it as The Orange Asterisk.  It's hard to tell in the picture, but each beam is a different shade of orange and a different length.  To me, this statue represents the beauty and industry that is Milwaukee.  I can hear the hammering, I can smell the tanneries, I can see the blackened slush in the streets.  If I look at it right I can also see what looks like a cluster of Hotwheels tracks, but I digress.

The Day After Today

...is when I'll announce the contest winner. There's still time to enter, and there's a big clue for you over there on the lower left, in my Twitter update.

It's not possible for me to utter the phrase "...the day after today" without thinking of this song, the background music for many an evening spent in the pursuit of mind-altering experiences. If I close my eyes I can see my Guess jeans with the zipper at the ankle and I can smell the waft of Djarums smoked in an effort to disguise the smell of other smoke. There's some profanity in this song, but I'm willing to break my "no eff bomb" rule for these boys because they're from Milwaukee.

Yes, I'm feeling awfully suburban these days and more than a little nostalgic. I'm generally slow to notice things--that's either the sleep deprivation or the mom jeans cutting off all circulation to my brain--but it's just now occurring to me that 6 children and an ahhh-sum yarn collection are not exactly the accouterments of a playah. But did I happen to mention I closed Wolski's?

Woman So Weary

If you are recovering from a lingering illness and feeling very tired and put-out and generally sorry for yourself, then it is not a good idea to go on YouTube to hear this song.  It is a beautiful song but it will not make you feel better.  You will feel validated and understood and when he gets to the part about "woman so weary" you might just wrap your arms (your unbroken wings) around your computer monitor and sob, This song is about me!  Caetano Veloso totally gets me!

While that sounds comforting at first -- the feeling validated and understood part --it's a trap.  Every vaguely artistic woman of Jewish and Hispanic descent who's in physical pain thinks she's Frida Kahlo, with or without the mustache.  And behaving in a wallowsome manner with no richly-hued, completed canvas to show for yourself may inspire one of your children to say (you know the one, the quipster), Mommy, maybe you wouldn't feel so sick if you stopped talking about feeling sick.

But that was last week.  This week I'm better, and I can tell because I'm noticing things again: things that piss me right off.  Scone crumbs in the boy's bathroom.  How many times have I told them it's just wrong to eat while you're on the toilet?  And good God, what's that hanging off the spaniel's nether-fur?  Why am I the only person in this house who feels the pull of responsibility to do something about it?

Last night LB told me, "You're contentious again."  This is code for, I must have you now.  On the howler monkey coffee table, between that big pile of knitting and the library copy of My Point, and I do Have One by popular comedian and daytime talk-show host Ellen Degeneres.  Let's play Diego and Frida, except this time I get to be Diego, okay?

Unfortunately, I was too busy yelling about the governmental conspiracy to drive all women slowly insane by releasing conflicting rules on when to get mammograms.  That, and the fact that House hasn't been good since they wrote Vicodin out of the script.

I hope it gets its own series.

Once

I have been holding onto this bumper sticker since the summer of 1984. 

My reluctance to put it on my car was not due to fear of defacing the rear bumper (we have never had a new car and I doubt we ever will) but because I didn't want to waste the sticker.  I earned it.  The bartender told me I could have one even if I didn't stay until closing, but that would have been cheating and I'd have none of it. 

As the years went by and it became apparent my bar-closing days were far, far behind me, I was even more hesitant to "use up" the sticker.

But now the time is right;  I'm ready to flaunt my achievement.  Yes, you bus drivers and traffic cops and 'nother moms in the Keshet parking lot.  That lady driving the green, ten-year-old 8-passenger van full of used handiwipes and McDonald's toys really did close Wolski's, once.

Song of the Seed Stitch

Unfurled phalanx of pearls:

droplets bead

on a sun-bleached leaf.

Kita Bet

Oh, boy, I'm enjoying reading your true/false exams--especially the more incorrect ones.  And here I thought I'd left no preference or experience unconfessed!  While the rest of you ponder your answers, here's Olive's school picture to gaze upon. 

Miss Olive, 2nd grade: Ariella Joy Frankel Keshet Day School.