Knitters-Knitters

Appearances

Sabina requested a tower of florentines instead of a birthday cake.  Despite my adherence to Giada's recipe, these really don't look much like florentines.

And though delicious, I'm not sure I can say they tasted like florentines--not nearly crispy and lacy enough.  (I tend to be suspicious of Giada's recipes overall, not because her physique suggests she lives on dry arugula but because of the odd way she peels back her lips in a grimace before taking a bite, as if the very act of ingestion pains her.)

This expanse of seed stitch bears little resemblance to the coat it will eventually become (before the end of the Olympics--that's my goal). 

And this is not a horticultural alien invasion, but apparently, a natural denizen of earth called Ligularia.  Now emerged from its pod state, it's kind of pretty.

But I'm thinking this is actually recognizable as yarn.  Spun and plied by me, on my drop spindle, from Blue Faced Leicester. 

I'm going to make Olive a little Olive-colored vest (probably just a basic, stockinette in the round pattern with a v-neck and a bit of ribbing at the sleeve openings).  I'm not sure I have enough yarn to complete it, but I've got tons more of the roving if I need it.

Speaking of Appearances, tomorrow is the open-house for Olive's school.  Seeing as how it'll be held at 11 in the morning and in an elementary school, I'm guessing there'll be no alcohol.  Not that my colon lets me imbibe, but I always find these things easier to endure if everyone else is tipsy.  My main concern is that I have already met the principal of the school, and given this, she will probably expect me to recognize her.

I am Bad With Faces.  Not just bad with faces in the sense that it takes me a few seconds, but then I can eventually place the person.  I mean really, really bad--the kind of bad where people assume I must be snubbing them.  When LB and I attend social functions together, he helps me out with little reminders like, Why, hello Mr. and Mrs. Joel Shlabotnik!  Jen and I haven't seen you since that Milwaukee Chamber Music Society get-together in '04.  Or even, Nicole Dillenberg, Tom Chao's former roommate whom I met once 14 years ago but whom Jen has known since 1989.  What a rare treat! 

This second incident has never actually happened, but it could.  And if it does, Nicole, don't take it personally.

A Late-Summer Night's Special Ed Dream

Several nights ago, I had a dream that I was angsting over feeling unprepared for Olive's first day of school (which is less than a week away).  I worried that I didn't know what school supplies she needed to have in advance, if any.  I wondered if her school had a microwave, so that she could enjoy her typical fare of Indian curry dishes, black beans and rice, and spicy noodles instead of just cold sandwiches.  Now, this part of the dream isn't hard to analyze--at that time, I actually didn't know the answers to these questions (since remedied).  Where things get strange is when Soon-Yi Previn and Eric Lax materialize out of nowhere, to help.

Now, Mia Farrow is a regular in my dream-chamber and has played everything from starring roles to a face in the crowd.  Woody Allen, though not a frequent guest, has appeared here and there.  And, even though I didn't know what he looks like in real life until today (when I Googled his photo) this is the second time I've dreamt about Eric Lax.  But Soon-Yi?  Never, and I never wanted her there.  I had no interest, and if one could hire a dream-bouncer, she'd have been on my Denied Access list--for Mia's sake.  Yes, I chose sides.

The thing is, in this dream Soon-Yi was nice.  She gave me a list of everything Olive needed, and each item had a check mark next to it.  Then Eric Lax wordlessly handed me a large white plastic bag.  I didn't open it, but I understood it to be full of all the supplies on the list.  And I remember that I could clearly see a curve in the bag's shape that suggested one of the items was a protractor.  Soon-Yi did all the talking in this dream, and though I don't remember specifically what she said, it was general reassuring remarks about drop-off and pick-up locations, fat, non-toxic crayons, rolls of sticky-tape and how everybody worried about this sort of stuff.  She patted my hand a lot, which is, incidentally, Olive's main way of saying hello and good-bye (patters-patters, we call it).

The dream ends with a close-up on the face of Eric Lax, and my noticing that he's wearing a bow tie.

*******

The bow tie is significant.  I know of only one person in real life who wears a bow tie regularly, and that's my shrink.  Actually, saying he wears a bow tie regularly is an understatement.  He always wears a bow tie.  I've never seen him without his bow tie.  He is the bow tie.  You'll think I'm making this up for the quirk-factor, or, at the very least, to make my psychiatrist sound more interesting than your psychiatrist.  It's true, though---if I entered his office and found him in an ascot, a bolo, or a regular old necktie, I think I'd burst into tears.

After dreaming of Soon-Yi and her being so kind and all, I felt I should at least read her Wiki page.  I was shocked to see she has a Masters in Special Ed.  Had I heard this somewhere, and that's why my brain conjured her for this odd orientation? 

I'm pretty good at analyzing other people's dreams, but rarely my own.  In this case, I'm left with a thought that comes to me so often in this strange and convoluted journey that is Olive's--and our--education: help often comes from unusual sources.

More than you need to know

TMI Meme, pilfered from Blackbird

Eye Color: Green
Hair Color: Dark Brown
--Dyed or Natural: Dyed.
--Curly or Straight: Wavy

Right- or Left-handed: Left
Tan or Pale: Ghostly
Jeans or Khakis: Jeans.
Country, Rap, or Rock: Rock.
Heritage: Jewish, Latvian, Cuban by way of Spain

Shoes you're wearing today: Clark sandals
Your weakness(es): Yarn
Your perfect pizza: sausage and peppers, from the Nines in Ithaca, NY
Favorite color: Green

Favorite place: Usually, wherever I just left
Goal you'd like to achieve: Communicating with Olive
Your most overused phrase(s): WHERE'S OLIVE?

Your thoughts first waking up: What'd I miss?

Your best physical feature(s): Eyes
Your bedtime: 12 pm.
Your most missed memory: Truthfully? Memory often feels like a burden.
Pepsi or Coke: Diet Coke.
McDonald's or Burger King: McDonalds.
Single or group dates: Single.

Adidas or Nike: Tretorns.  Worn rarely.
Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea: Bleah.  Not a tea person.
Chocolate or vanilla: Chocolate.
Cappuccino or coffee: Coffee, black.

DO YOU:
Smoke: No
Cuss: No, unless "crap" counts
Have a boyfriend/girlfriend: No

Take a shower: Yes.

Have a crush(es): Does Charlie Sheen count?

Think you've been in love: Yes.

Want to get married: Already am.
Believe in yourself: Usually
Believe in God: Yes.
Believe in your government: More or less
Get motion sickness: Only on Highway 1.
Think you're attractive: Yes
Think you're a health freak: Bwaha!

Get along with your parents: Yes.
Like thunderstorms: Love them

IN THE PAST MONTH, HAVE YOU:
Drunk alcohol: No
Gone on a date: No
Gone to the mall: No.
Been on stage: No.
Eaten an entire box of Oreos: No
Eaten sushi: No

Been dumped: No.
Gone skating: No

Gone skinny dipping: No.
Stolen anything: No

What a slow month!

HAVE YOU EVER:
Played a game that required removal of clothing: Just once--Strip dreydl.  Shortly after playing Dreydl for Shots.

Been trashed or extremely intoxicated: Yes.  See above.
Been caught "doing something": Yes.  Again, see above.
Been called a tease: Yes

Gotten beaten up: No

Age you hope to be married: From now on.
Number of children you'd like: 6 will do.
Describe your dream wedding: I never had a fantasy of what my wedding would be like, but both were very nice, with no cake mushing in the face.
What do you want to be when you grow up: Lucid.

WHAT YOU LIKE IN THE OPPOSITE SEX:
Best eye color?: Green
Best hair color?: Black (and white)
Short or long hair: Short

Height: Tall.
Best first date location: La Brea Tar Pits
Best first kiss location: Disneyland

IN THE NUMBERS:
Number of people I could trust with my life: Two

Number of CD's: 1500 +
Number of piercings: Two, one in each ear
Number of tattoos: None
Number of times my name has appeared in the newspaper: Hmmm..twice maybe?
Number of scars on my body: Many, but only one really impressive one, a keloid going from navel to right hip.

The Old House

Today we went back to the old house to check on the paint job, throw out some trash from the garage, and put some pots of flowers on the front porch. In general, I don't like going back to the old house, regardless of where that old house may be and what exactly happened there.

 In fact, the happier the memories, the harder it is to endure them.  I don't like going back, period.

I could write a song about just how much I don't like to go back, but it's been done, and quite handily at that:

 

My children adore Going Back, and love nothing better than what I consider the world's most painful activity: looking through old photographs.  Invariably, we end up in a conversation like this:

Girls: finding a photo of me and a friend, at college.  Who is that with you?

Me: That's my friend, Rich.

Girls: Where is he now?

Me: Well, he died.

Girls: How?

Me: He had an aneurism.  This is technically true.  The fact that the aneurism was caused by a blunt  instrument driven into his skull by his own hand following a bad mescaline trip is more than they need to know.  He wasn't the same after that, and died several years later.

Girls: how old was he?

Me: Desperate, by this point in the conversation. English majors don't tend to live that long...

Girls: Becoming alarmed...but weren't you and Daddy both...

Me: BATH TIME! Hair day for everyone!

So I had been wary of bringing Olive back to see the Old House.  You never know with her what's going to be be joyful and what's going  to be disturbing, and she tends to act out, Elliot to my E.T., whatever I'm feeling.

But it was very clear she was delighted to see her old stomping ground.  In fact, she did a little dance...

one of her best dances ever...

complete with a clear narrative...

...in the form of special arm movements and graceful neck bends....

It's going to be okay, Mommy!  

Progress

The trouble with moving every three years is that you get in the habit of always having 5 or 6 boxes which head straight to the garage, never to be opened or thrown out or even considered until the next move, when--if you're handling the move yourself--they head straight to the new garage.  But if at some point during those moves you graduate to hiring hunky young men to move the boxes for you, those self-same boxes sometimes find there way into the breakfast nook.  And when you open one, expecting to find that collection of plates with all your kids birthdates on them or maybe the white, tumeric-stained ladle, you come across this:

That's baby Daisy.  Look how sweet she is!  At first you're not sure because Sabina wore that little green dress, too, but this baby has two handies.  Remember that horrible wall-to-wall carpet?  Remember how baby gowns weren't popular then, and how happy you were to have this one instead of those boring onesies with the tedious snaps?  Everyone wore that green dress at some point, except Anatole, who was too big for it when he arrived.

And speaking of Tolie, look what else came out of the box!  Baby's first Green Card.  He was so fat upon arrival you suspected he'd been inflated instead of fed.  No hair gel required for that spikey 'do.

Here's baby Olive.  You put that teddy bear on the electrical cord to justify her faschination with the socket, but really, it was all about the cord.  With 20/20 hindsight, you like to refer to this unusual interest on her part as Clue #1.

It's a rude shock to tear into a box expecting a kitchen implement but instead finding yourself at Niagara Falls, Canada side, in 1986, with someone who is very much not LB.  How you two argued on that trip!  And how ill-suited you both were in your roles of driver and navigator!  Why couldn't you have just enjoyed being in your very early twenties, and did things that only people in their very early twenties can do: lift heavy boxes without getting winded comes to mind, for instance.  Or eat spicy food right before bed.  Sit down, stand up, sit down, with nary a perceptible change in heart rate.

LB and I have almost completely unpacked, shopped at IKEA, assembled two bar stools, a kitchen table, and a large bookshelf/curio cabinet with nary a disagreement or even a peevish remark.  Now that is something I could not have done in my early twenties.

First dinner in new house:

Egg Rolls

It was great seeing Annie again and I realized what a terrific person she was and how much fun it was just knowing her and I thought of that old joke, you know, the, this, this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, 'Doc, uh, my brother's crazy, he thinks he's a chicken,' and uh, the doctor says, 'well why don't you turn him in?' And the guy says, 'I would, but I need the eggs.' Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about relationships. You know, they're totally irrational and crazy and absurd and, but uh, I guess we keep going through it...because...most of us need the eggs.

-Woody Allen

When my dad (OFD) goes to the Chinese restaurant, there's always some anxiety involving the egg roll and spicy mustard.  Traditionally, during the egg roll course at Milwaukee's William Ho's, both spicy mustard and sweet and sour sauce are brought to the table.  And with the same regularity, the spicy mustard is whisked away before the entree arrives.  For whatever reason, Mr. Ho does not consider the main dish--any main dish--to require spicy mustard.  The problem is, OFD likes the spicy mustard on his shrimp in lobster sauce, on his white rice, on his fried rice, and occasionally, on his beef and broccoli.  One would think it'd be easy enough to simply ask the waitress to leave the mustard behind, or if unable to catch her pre-whisk, to please return it. 

Herein lies the problem: once, long before I was born, OFD requested that the spicy mustard be left behind for him to enjoy with his entree.  The waiter came back with the accusation that surely, OFD must have forgotten he'd ordered a fish dish, thus implying that no reasonable person could intend to put spicy mustard on fish.  OFD felt powerless to object.

Throughout my childhood and adolescence, the spicy mustard conundrum joined us at every William Ho's outing.  Asking for the mustard to be left behind could precipitate a confrontation so stressful as to interfere with OFD's enjoyment of the first course.  And asking for the mustard to be returned was right out.  Hiding the jar under the table whenever the waitress materialized seemed childish (my suggestion), and sneaking in our own mustard would have felt like crossing the line. 

Why didn't we just eat someplace else?  William Ho had the best egg rolls.

Today was Olive's first day of showing up for Summer camp.  Because of our horrible gastrointestinal virus, we had missed orientation and the entire first week of activities.  We did not get to meet the counselors before today, and we did not have our Special Packet: you know, the one that says where to go, what to wear, what to pack in the satchel, and in fact, what sort of satchel it should be.  All we had this morning was a short letter sent long prior to orientation that said, in reference to camp arrival, Please be prompt!  Drop-off and pick-up locations are in front.  Drive down the fire lane, please, and do not get into the carpool lane!

Some people, like LB, can read directions such as these with no increase in blood pressure.  They're sure that the whole fire lane/carpool lane business will be completely self-explanatory upon arrival, and if not, well, what's the worst that can happen?  But when I read things like this, I know that my near future holds a circuitous maze of one-way lanes, poorly placed orange cones, and the promise of being yelled at by someone in a crossing guard's banner. 

It makes me feel, to put it another way, as if I've arrived at Mr. Ho's after the egg roll plates have been cleared.

As I could have predicted, there was more than one fire lane, and we ended up in the fire lane more traveled. It was the fire lane meant for parents of 'Nother Kids: the ones who leap effortlessly from the back of the minivan and can follow the language of cursory waves and written signs that say exactly where they should be.  It's amazing how one parent being in the wrong lane can slow down the entire drop-off process, and it's equally amazing (though I may be overly sensitive about this sort of thing) how quick those parents of regular kids are about pressing the horn.  When the requisite woman in a banner  showed up with her indecipherable instructions to use that lane back there, see? Where those cars are coming out.  No!  Not the first one--the one behind it! I barely flinched.  I already knew there was no succor to be had, let alone spicy mustard.

I am convinced these are the things that shorten our lives, these pokes in the sternum in the form of brief, admonishing exchanges with other people.  And it makes sense to me now why no condiment in the world was worth, in OFD's mind, the risk of an evening out turning into a jab in the chest.  The question of why we venture out into the world at all is so handily answered above by Woody Allen that it hardly bears repeating, let alone paraphrasing, but there it is: we need the egg rolls.

Tall Bus

Today was Olive's last day at school at Autism Academy.  While there's always the hope she may be referred back there in the Fall if the powers that be at Northbrook public school feel they cannot meet her needs, it's not very likely.  And today bore all the hallmarks of the last day: the contents of Olive's cubby are now in the front seat of my van.  There was singing and extra attention for Olive, who enjoyed it thoroughly, and who does not know this was her last day.  I have a special mix tape of her favorite songs from school, a few extra forks that didn't find their way back into her daily lunchbox, a letter, and a long entry in the Sacred Notebook that I can't bear to read just yet.  There was hugging and crying.  I may have started it.  And while I expect Olive will be happy in her new school, it's hard to ignore that I am not so good with transitions.

Tomorrow we are leaving for vacation, and will be attending a wedding.  We'll be back on June 6th.  I'm sure we will have fun when we get there, but first, there is the Getting There.  As you may have guessed given the distance between Chicago and coastal California, getting there will involve hurtling through the air while being held captive in a tin can flying. And I'll bet you're not too surprised to hear this is not an activity I enjoy.  My dislike of flying predates 9-11, and is mostly about the possibility of the plane dropping right out of the sky resulting in a fiery death preceded by interminable moments of knowing what's to come.  This morning I made the mistake of reading about fear of flying online, and now have learned several reasons to fear that hadn't occurred to me before.  For instance, many people are afraid that their panic will cause them to humiliate themselves in front of the rest of the passengers.  Great! I hadn't even thought of that one, but I'm guessing it's what stops most phobic people from ordering, Emily Hartley style, that they "turn the plane around."

This is where you jump in and post reassuring comments about thoroughly unremarkable plane trips you've taken, how the Valium didn't mysteriously fail you just when you needed it most, and how the most disturbing part of the process was having to remove your shoes at the security check point.  I'm waiting.

Yellow

Green has been my favorite color for as long as I can remember, but I'm giving some serious thought to changing it.  Green used to imply all things fresh and crispy, like blanched snap peas or Prescriptives Calyx, but at some point in the recent past it became synonymous with all things preachy and pedantic.  I've gone on about this before, how much I hate the term green and how its mere mention makes me want to off-gas.

It's not the sentiment I mind.  We recycle (Chicago makes it easy--if it didn't, I probably wouldn't), I take short showers, and LB rides his bike to and from the train station--in a suit, no less.  Perhaps the problem is the messenger.  When I was a tot, the term we used was Ecologically Minded, and those doing the proselytizing were generally of the Muppet persuasion.  If the message is for me to ride the bus more and drive less, I'd much rather the admonishment came from Kermit than, say, Gwyneth Paltrow.  Kermit, at least, has a more believable interest in preserving the purity of mountain streams. 

Perhaps what I'm saying is, I prefer to be scolded by fictional characters.  I know I prefer Gwyneth Paltrow when she's a fictional character.

Monday

Do you ever wake up in the morning with a sense that a temporarily forgotten, recent loss is about to jump to the front of your consciousness?  You wait a bit before rising, maybe even steel yourself, but when nothing comes to mind, you get up and step into the shower.  And still you wait: now, for the sweep of relief that tells you it was safe to sleep.  There's nothing lurking in the wings to be re-experienced.  But instead, you've only the feeling that this thing is still back there, waiting to be remembered.

Does this happen to you?

The I Have a Dream Within a Dream Speech

During my freshman year of college, I had a dream that I was shopping in the university bookstore and collapsed from fatigue.  I was then (in the dream, remember) rushed to the hospital where I was kept for about two days, for the simple purpose of sleep.  Then I was released, having been declared Well Rested.  It was as I sat on my bed, back in my dorm room, thinking about how I still felt a bit tired even after that official hospital rest, that I woke up from the outer, framing dream.  And when I was really and truly awake, I was confused for a good five seconds (that sounds short, but it's a pretty long time to not know where you are or where you've been) about whether or not the bookstore collapse had really happened.  It would have been longer, but the sharp and persistent knock on my door from Francine Esposito, reminding me that we had to get to breakfast before the cafeteria ran out of turnovers, brought me to my senses.

Since then, the dream within a dream thing has happened to me a few times a year, and always during times when I'm especially sleep deprived.  And over the years, I've noticed that the inner dream is almost always a heavy-duty wish fulfillment dream.  It's when I dream that my brother Abel is alive, standing in my parents entryway with his green duffle bag.

It's when I have that dream that Olive is talking--not speaking in elaborate Shakespearean sentences that would arouse the suspicion of even an unconscious person, but a few words here and there, and in the presence of Stalwart Cate, her private speech therapist who is so grounded that she could perform high-voltage electrical work without rubber gloves, if she were so inclined.  There's always the thought if it happens in front of Cate, it can't be my imagination and then I quasi-wake.  I'm sad, of course, but the muted sort of sadness one experiences in dreams.  Once I'm fully awake, it's not so bad because I've had some time to get used to the idea before I'm truly back in my life again.

And I need that extra time, because two hours on the Edens expressway is a lot harder to face than Francince Esposito and the promise of turnovers.