Knitters-Knitters

The Proposal, or, You Are a Small Woman Walking Alone

Today I opted out of the nap to make some serious headway on the bedraggled baby blanket I showed you yesterday.  After watching my beloved Live! with Kelly, I realized I had an episode of The Real Housewives of Atlanta on DVR that I'd never seen.  It's the one that chronicles Kim's love affair with Kroy.  I don't have much faith in the future of that marriage, but seeing Kim's engagement ring got me thinking about my own, and about the day LB proposed.

It's funny when you look back at the catalyst in any big step, and how enormous changes can be brought about by a seemingly random event.

LB and I had been talking about marriage since before I moved out of Los Angeles, but decorum and a sense of too-soonness prevented us from making any steps in this direction before my divorce was final.

I had been living in my little apaprtment at that exact spot where Nob Hill meets the Tenderloin for about six months.  By this time I had a long-term temp job at UCSF, which meant I took MUNI from Parnassus Heights to the Civic Center every day to get home from work.  The walk to the Civic Center in the morning wasn't bad, but I didn't like the walk home -- especially since it was October and it was dusk by the time I'd arrive home.  Each street I crossed on the walk up the hill that is Leavenworth Street took me into safer territory, and I would walk as fast as I could, carrying a lit cigarette: a feeble weapon that I'm sure intimidated no one.

If you've lived in both Los Angeles and San Francisco, then you are no stranger to walking past homeless people.  But for reasons I don't know, the homeless in San Francisco are much more aggressive than the homeless in Los Angeles.  In L.A., I was never actually touched by a person asking for money.  It was an unwritten agreement: You are a small woman walking alone.  You probably find me threatening, so I will ask you for cash from a slight distance and you'll hand me a few bills.  But in San Francisco, the unspoken monologue ran thusly:  You are a small woman walking alone.  Therefore I will get right in your face and maybe even grab your shoulder, so that you'll fling bills at me in a rain of terror and guilt.

One evening as I was hustling my way up Leavenworth, a man approached me and demanded that I give him a light for his cigarette.  I fumbled in my purse for a book of matches and he said, "No, I want to light my cigarette off yours."  I handed him my cigarette and he said, "You've gotta puff on your end or it won't work."  This, for starters, is not true, and I was not about to put myself head to head with a complete stranger.  He began to shout obscenities at me, for thinking I was too good to help him light his cigarette. 

Now he was in front of me, blocking my path up the hill. 

"Just take my matches," I said. "Please, leave me alone."  I'd taken enough self-defense in high school gym class to know that, "Please, leave me alone," wasn't really the most effective way of ridding oneself of unwanted attention, but that's what came out of my mouth.

Then a miracle happened.  A guy on the other side of the street came running over and said, "There you are!"  He put his arm around me loosely and said to the man, "You've got some sort of problem, Buddy?"  My would-be accoster made a dramatic show of walking away then.  Hey, I only wanted to share a cigarette!  No harm no foul!

When I got home I was shaken, relieved, and inexplicably angry at LB: LB who lived where Cow Hollow meets Pacific Heights.  Those familiar with the geography of San Francisco will know that's a much different kettle of fish than the corner of Pine and Leavenworth.

I made the decision right then that I was moving, and I called LB.

"I thought we were going to wait a few months, then get engaged, move in together..." he said.

I said, "Well, I'm moving now.  You can come with me or not."  My moving in with LB was not an option.  Finding an apartment in San Francisco that allowed dogs was no easy accomplishment, and LB had signed his lease with no idea that a very small dachshund with a very loud bark was going to enter his life.

"What if you have to sign a year lease?" he asked.

"Then I sign a lease."  I was more than a little impatient with what I interpreted as reticence on his part, and a reluctance to move up our plans by just a few months.  After all, I'd been divorced for days by that point!

"What about what we said about not wanting to move in together until we were ready to get engaged?"  LB and I had had many conversations about what it was like to live with someone, and how in our combined experience, it had never taught us anything about the other person that we didn't already know.  It was an illusory step on the path to marriage that we planned on skipping, thankyouverymuch.

"That still applies,"  I said.  But then, because I am after all a reasonable person and it wasn't LB's fault that my ex had kept me hanging for 6 years before proposing, I said, "I'd be willing to live with you unengaged for the first 30 days."

LB sighed deeply.  I found out much later that after our conversation, LB called my mom in Milwaukee and asked her, Why does Jen want everything yesterday?  

I don't know how she responded, but his asking her that was a bit like asking a Piccolo Pete why the tea kettle keeps emitting such a high-pitched screechy noise.

And so, we found an apartment in the Forest Hill area about a week and a half later.  We were very excited.  We bought sticky-backed paper and lined the shelves.  LB submitted all our change of address cards to the post office -- something he would do for us many, many times over the years.

One day after we'd been living in our apartment (our apartment!) about two weeks, we brought Ruthie to the vet on MUNI for her well-dachshund check-up.  Against my better judgment, she was given a rabies injection because the vet was convinced it was the combo rabies/coronavirus vaccine that triggered Ruthie's allergies when she got her first series of puppy shots and not the rabies vaccine. 

After we got home from the vet, we sat on the living room futon couch and watched Alf while Ruthie pouted and nursed her bruised ego in her Pesty Nesty (a plastic litter-box lined with a well-worn Bucky Badger blanket).

LB said to me, "Do you want some juice?"  I mutely held out my hand, engrossed in Alf, and LB handed me a glass of juice.  It's noteworthy that the juice glass had a cow on it and was part of a set given to me by my ex's mother, in deference to my Wisonsin roots, at my first bridal shower.

Then LB said, "Do you want to get married?" 

I knew we would be engaged by the end of the month, but he still managed to surprise me.  I was even more surprised that he had a ring, purchased from a Jamaican street vendor on Market and Powell.

I was very proud of that ring.  The following Monday, I went to one of the three hundred and forty seven nail salons on Irving Avenue and got fake nails, to better show it off.

Later that evening after we'd told our families about our engagement, Ruthie finally came out of her little nest, ran around the apartment a few times and broke out in huge, discoid welts.  Apparently, the rabies vaccine had sat in a lump in her thigh until she moved around, dispersing it through her bloodstream and causing the delayed allergic reaction.

We called a cab to take her back to the vet, and told the driver it was an emergency.  By the time we arrived at the all-night animal clinic, Ruthie was in shock and had lost consciousness.  We made it just in time, and after a shot of epinephrine and some prednisone Ruthie was the same pesty little dog as always. 

She did have to stay at the clinic overnight for observation, and I remember sitting in the back of the cab with LB, bound for home without the distraction of Ruthie.  I was still a little worried, but calm enough to notice my hand in LB's, resting on his lap and sporting its new silver band. 

Look at us!  I thought.  We're weathering storms already!

The Pivotal Role of My Sister Lo

After that clandestine week in Los Angeles during which LB spent quality time with me his Aunt and Uncle, certain truths became inescapable.  First, this had not been a flash in the pan sort of, "Could it have worked out between us?" week that ended in sheepish handshakes all around.  Second, I did not have the stomach for living a double life. Since LB and I began writing to each other, my ileum had been having regular out-of-body experiences.  I know some people claim to have felt their soul or their consciousness hover just them and that it was an amazing, fascinating sensation.  And I don't doubt this.  It's just that I believe all portions of my digestive tract perform better from the inside.

I thought it would be wise to get away for a little bit, to a neutral location, so that I could think about whether I was going to stay in this marriage.  Perhaps someplace near friends or family.  Is it my fault that my sister and her family just happened to live in Menlo Park, a stone's throw from San Francisco?  I could -- and have --wasted precious hours wondering if I would have gone to visit Lo if she lived in Shaker Heights, Ohio.  I didn't go visit Lo just to see LB, but I also didn't go visit her to not see him, either.

It was not hard to get away for a week to "think about things."  Soon-to-be-ex was not blind to the fact that we fought tooth and nail, and more than one argument had ended in a silence full of animosity yet oddly free of anger.  I'm not a ranter by nature.  I don't shout: if anything, I'm a soft talker. I don't throw things, I've never doused someone with Diet Squirt, and I have never chased a person down with a can of bug spray, threatening to starve him to death by never making his lunch again (hi, Mom!). 

But I have shut down, stared hard at something in the distance and walked away.  When I told ex I wanted to leave and spend time with my sister to "think," he did not argue.  He did not know about LB; what he knew was that over the past week, I had stopped fighting back and the silence was unbearable.

To understand the way this week in Menlo Park went down, you have to know a few things about my sister.  She's not just a soft-talker; she's a seldom-talker.  Thus, everything she does say is heavy with import.  The one time I accompanied her to book group, I noticed that on the few occasions she made it clear she was about to comment, every other member of the group stopped talking as if their switches had been flicked off and waited in breathless anticipation. 

I have spent most of my life trying to think of appropriate adjectives for my sister and come up scratch.  Suffice it to say, I was not entirely correct when I said that I have two kinds of relatives: the kind that get right up in your face and demand to know your business, and the kind who are dead.  Lo is her own category.  She didn't ask many questions those first few days.  I accompanied her on walks with my little nephew, we took him to school, we went out for lunch at "Late for the Train."  I told her I was not happy with my husband, and she did not ask for much elaboration.

It was her idea to go into the city one day, and I asked her if she'd mind if I visited a friend of mine from Brown, this guy named "Joe."   I explained that he lived alone in San Francisco, and that I knew him from the writing program at Brown.  She asked, "Is he gay?"

This was too easy. 

I said, "Well, he and I have never really discussed it (true) but...you know...single fiction writer living in San Francisco..." also true!  I spoke to LB on the phone that night to tell him when our train was coming in and said, "Oh, and in case it comes up: you're gay." 

He was unphased.  "That's fine, I've passed for gay before."

LB met us at the train.  After brief hellos, Lo and my nephew went to... the aquarium?  The zoo?  I have no idea.  LB and I got on a bus and went to his apartment.  That part I remember.

For someone who had never considered herself a risk-taking, law-scoffing liar, I was disturbingly good at it.  This is not to say I didn't feel guilt: I did, but in surprising situations.  The guilt I felt toward my husband was nothing compared to the guilt I felt toward my family, and the fact that I had made them unwitting accomplices.  It came in waves, like that evening when Lo's family and I went to a Mexican feast prepared by our cousin Amy (all the Gonsier cousins live in the Bay Area), and she had left the cilantro on the side because she'd heard I didn't care for it.  And even that was nothing compared to how I felt when my cousins gave me a late wedding present on that same evening.  Ouch.

The morning before I was due to go back to Los Angeles, Lo suggested to me that I try to stick it out one complete year.  From a legal standpoint, leaving at one year is no more difficult than leaving at seven months.  And if it hadn't been for LB, I might have taken Lo's advice.  The future ex and I had been fighting for the last six years -- what difference would a few more months matter? 

I thought about telling Lo about LB, I really did.  But by this point I had 1) used her house as a home base while I went to visit my inamorata in San Francisco 2) led her to believe LB was gay and 3) signed a document stating that if anything happened to her and her husband, I would raise my nephew.  Let's just say the timing felt... awkward.

I told her that I could not, would not stay a year, and she sighed in exasperation.  Brat! I could hear her thinking.  She grabbed the most recent issue of The New Yorker and wrote out a hasty time-line in the white spaces on the cover.  It included telling the ex I was unhappy in the marriage, going to a few sessions of obligatory marriage counseling, getting a job, and moving out.  In this time-line, I'm sure she imagined I'd be moving someplace within L.A.  Then, she drove me to the airport. Luckily, she did not offer to wait with me at the gate.

I missed my flight back to Los Angeles.  This can happen when one sits firmly rooted on the vinyl bench and ignores the first, second and third boarding calls.  I've heard that flights from SF to LAX depart almost hourly, but I could not get on another flight that night.  Again, that's what happens when instead of going to a ticket agent and booking another flight, you go to the payphone, call LB and invite yourself to spend the night.  After that, I must have called the ex and told him I was spending another night with my sister: I honestly don't remember.  The lies were flowing so fast and free by that point I could barely keep up with them.  And as for Lo, I let her assume I was back in Los Angeles already.

When I did get back to Los Angeles I lasted two and a half weeks: two and a half weeks which I will not describe except to say this.  It matters not how verbally abusive a person is in his marriage.  The person who leaves is the villain, then and forever, and the sooner you can eat up all that blame with a spoon, the faster you can get out the door.  I admitted to everything except the fact that I was involved with LB: I was the failure, the quitter, the immature one, the embodiment of bad faith, the third gunman on the grassy knoll, and at one point I conceded that yes, it's possible I was really a lesbian.

I probably would have left sooner, but at that time plane fare was exorbitant without two weeks' notice.  Then I moved in with my friend C.Y. and her husband, who lived in Sunnyvale (another stop on that train that goes from Menlo Park to San Francisco).  A week after that, I had my own apartment just on the border of Nob Hill and the Tenderloin (I believe Herb Caen called it the Tendernob) and a temp job at U.C. San Francisco. 

The rest is just logistics.

But wait!  I see hands waving in the air.  There's a loose end: when did Lo find out LB wasn't gay? 

This part of the story I don't like to tell because it makes me look really, really bad.  You know, unlike the rest of the story where I come off like Mother Teresa. 

I had been living in San Francisco for a few months, and didn't see Lo all that often during this time.  She was busy: first she went to Jamaica.  Like a good sister, I went to her house every other day to feed her dang bird cockatiel.  Then Lo took all the pressure off (if you know my family, then you know there were a lot of worried phone calls during my seemingly rash departure) by conceiving a child. 

A tonic!  Something else for Perlmans to talk about!  I don't think I've ever been so relieved to see someone get pregnant.

Now, children; there existed a time before voice-mail and before cell phones when all we had were answering machines.  The more broke among us had the kind you could not check up on remotely.  By this time LB and I had developed a sort of pattern.  I stayed at his place on Thursday nights, much to Ruthie the dachshund's chagrin.  Then, since he only worked half-days on Fridays, LB would go straight to my apartment after work, walk Ruthie and play with her for a little while. 

One Thursday evening, Lo called me and there was no answer.  She called again late Thursday night, and still no answer.  She called again Friday morning: no answer.  By this time she was Worried and drove all the way into the city (this involves crossing a bridge--something that terrified her) and got the manager to let her into my apartment.  There she found Ruthie, alone after LB had walked and played with her, and then gone back to his place.  I was still at work.

When I got home late Friday afternoon I had many messages, as you can imagine, and had no choice but to call Lo and let her know I was having more of a social life than one would expect at this point, post separation.  I used the "your mother is on the roof" approach.

"You remember that friend of mine, Joe, from Brown?"

"Yes...?"

"Well, it turns out I was wrong about him being gay."

Jen and LB in Sunnyvale, CA circa March, 1992.  Photo taken by C.Y.

In Which Malin Unleashes My Inner Dachshund

Saturday did not start out well.

It began like every morning, with that shaky feeling I've described ad nauseum in previous entries. That painful moment of stepping back into my life was immediately followed by a shower, and then a drive to Andersonville to see Dr. Teeny-Tiny about a fractured tooth that was fixed weeks ago but which had, distressingly, begun hurting again. I do not have good teeth genes: when I hit forty they began a very quiet yet reliable exodus, enamel first.

I have had five root canals, but this tooth decided it would really like to leave my mouth entirely. In an effort to avoid this, Dr. Teeny Tiny covered it in amalgam and applied all of her eighty-nine pounds of force to stabbing the inside of it repeatedly with a teeny-tiny red hot poker. If the amalgam holds the enamel together for two weeks, Dr. T-T will deem it safe to crown. Otherwise, it will come out and be replaced by not-a-tooth. And if this continues, I will be like my OFD, who by the time he was 65 had so few real teeth that he gave them names. I remember when it was just Manuel and José. Then, just José. He hung on for many years, but I'll never forget that wistful phone call from my mom: José is gone.

I snuck this photo of Dr. Teeny-Tiny. Is she not adorable? Truthfully, she's a couple of inches taller than I am. But I outweigh her by at least 15 pounds.

After returning home and was nursing my wounds in front of Locked Up Abroad (always good to make your own problems feel small) LB came in with the mail and said, "You have a package from Sweden."

Now, I have occasionally Ambien-shopped, but I knew I hadn't ordered anything from Sweden. The box was that most wonderful of things, a present. LB can attest that I really did get off the couch and jump up and down, then run from room to room with the package. There was chortling. I photographed the box in the many phases of opening it.

Here you can see the customs label, which promises Garn and Sweets. From Malin, a very treasured reader and occasional commenter here on Knitters-Knitters. Garn (Swedish for yarn) and sweets. Does it get better than that?

In fact, yes! This box also contained Moomin Christmas ornaments and a long-coveted Moomin cookie-cutter.

The red and blue yarns on the right are so cool and Swedish that they don't need ball bands. They have my favorite texture of yarn: lightly rough, nothing super-washy about it, and with a definite bite. And look at the variegated yarn with the gorgeous bits of rose and saffron!

I know exactly what the variegated yarn is going to be: something for the new baby of Olive's first teacher, Teacher Emily, that blonde pony-tailed instructor of Spectaculans by which all future teachers shall be judged. She and thus, her baby are among the few people worthy of a garment knit from such special yarn

The Moomin ornaments immediately went up on the small tree we'll probably keep up indefinitely, where they caused my older daughters to die a thousand deaths in the form of cuteness attacks. Then, of course, I dove into the candy. The chocolate coating on these Polly drops are of better quality than what America manufactures consider "quality" chocolate designed to be eaten on its own.

 

As you can see, I am not yet knitting with any of the new yarn. I'm knitting something from the box that my mother-in-law sent. Yarn, especially yarn from exotic locales, must be "dachshunded" for a time before it can be used.

Dachshunding is the process of carrying the box containing the yarn from room to room, having it accompany me during household tasks, and occasionally hiding it. Then I become insecure about the safety of the hiding place or the possibility of me forgetting the hiding place, and I hide it all over again. Sometimes I'll shout, at no one in particular, "Get your stinkin' mitts off my box!"

I keep up this somewhat anti-social behavior until LB reminds me, in a warning tone, "Do you remember why we had to stop giving Ruthie (our former dachshund) Pig's Ear chews?" On the record, we claimed they made her "overly excited." A better description would be that they made her joyful to the point of obsession.

Thank you, Malin, for this wonderful box that arrived on the most appropriate of days!

While U Wait

Yesterday I gave Olive her first dose of Vitamin Z, and then we all sat around her on the couch and waited for something to happen.

After about thirty seconds of watching Olive enjoy the T-Mobile ad, it occurred to me that given that Dr. Four-In-Hand told us not to expect to notice any changes for at least ten days, it might be a good idea to focus my attention on something else for a little while. Anything else. It's time for a happy list: not a simpering with gratitude sort of list that makes you unsure of whether to hurl or lactate, in which our planet is anthropomorphized and which ends with the phrase blessed be. A cautious, guarded, self-conscious, ever so slightly splenetic little list.

A Knitters-Knitters list.

1. When I'm sitting on the toilet and Pam Spaniel pushes the bathroom door open with her nose, walks to the garbage pail and verrrry slowly removes an empty toilet paper roll. She gives me a sidelong glance behind her ear-hangs-low position, trying for all the world to master the insouciance of a hide-in-plain-sight attitude. Oh, don't mind me: I just had to retrieve this cyclinder of cardboard so that I can shred it into small pieces and leave it lying around the house. As you were.

2. Laundry. I love laundry for the very reason that many of you probably dislike it: it never ends. There is always laundry to do. To roughly paraphrase Jesus, The laundry is always with us. A very wise friend of mine once told me that in times of extreme anxiety when one has no psychotropic drugs in the house, just do the next right thing. And the next right thing is always laundry. This small pile is courtesy of the boys and Olive.

3. This original artwork, given to me by my Aunt Marilyn and hanging in my beloved laundry room. I don't think I need to explain why this picture makes me happy.

4. The rare occurrence of a knitting project that holds my attention from beginning to end.

I especially like the portion of this scarf with the intarsia vertical stripes. It makes me think of fingers, or more specifically, phalanges. It reminds me of the episode of Bones where Temperance is trying -- awkwardly -- to amuse a crying baby. Finally she waggles her fingers at the baby and says, "Phalanges! Dancing phalanges!"

5. This picture of my eldest, taken ridiculously early last Sunday morning: 11a.m. You can see how tired she is from being dragged out of bed at that ungodly hour.

Fun optical illusion: if you lay your hand across the bridge of her nose and look at her from the eyes up, she looks like me. And if you cover her eyes and look at her from the nose down, she's the map of LB -- right down to the ridiculously long femurs and foot-tread that makes her sound heavier than she is (not shown).

6. Olive in her new hat. The fact that Olive has this hat. The way in which she acquired this hat.

When I picked up Olive from school on Tuesday, she was wearing the hat, and the surprise of seeing her like that -- all behatted and shaded -- sent me into cuteness conniptions right there in the parking lot. Olive's favorite aide had given it to her, as a way to block out a little of the sensory world that's been overwhelming her these days.

Olive loves the hat and will wear it all day long -- but only on the days when she is assigned to that particular aide. Otherwise, the hat is a reminder that she is not, at that moment, with her favorite aide, and it must be yanked off and stomped upon.

7. The mental gyrations I go through to justify why I don't own blocking wires. I like to tell myself it's because I'm a callous-fingered, resourceful sort of knitter who doesn't require fancy tools. I tell myself I enjoy pinning. Really it's because blocking wires, though not expensive and no doubt handy, are just not a sexy purchase. When I go yarn shopping I'm easily distracted by the very special skeins of hand-dyed yarn combed gently from the underbelly of libertarian yaks who live and breed in a small section of Wyoming that does not observe daylight savings time.

8. The miracle of blocking. As you can see, the Dancing Phalanges scarf is currently in traction, still under general anesthesia. I think the scarf will come out nicely -- all light and airy yet surprisingly warm -- but we won't know for sure until it regains consciousness. The next twenty-four hours will be crucial.

Spay and Wallow

Some dogs recognize their names and come when called.

Some recognize their names but do not come when called unless you say the word "Treatie!" afterwards.

Ruthie, 1994

Some consider their names extraneous information and only come if you rattle the cheese drawer.

Ben, a long time ago.

And some of us are so smart that we not only know our names, but recognize them when mentioned in casual conversation.  That would be dogs like me, Pam Spaniel.

Yesterday morning I heard Beta on the phone with the veterinarian's office.  I assumed she was ordering more heart medication for Her Naps-a-lot...  

...but then I heard my name and what sounded very much like surgery being scheduled.  For me. 

I am not allowed to eat after 6pm the night before.  Oh, sorrow!  This early dinner information was just beginning to sink in when Beta hung up the phone and told me, "Don't worry.  You'll be just fine.  Clover had the same thing done and she made a swift and complete recovery."

Complete?  Who is she kidding?

It had not occurred to me that at one time Clover might have been a very different dog than the crotchety old... than who she is now.

And then, Beta said words that have been haunting me for the past twenty-four hours: you won't even miss it.

What won't I miss?

What do I have that Clover does not have?

I can only think of one thing.

As if reading my mind, Beta said, "Oh, not that.  Never that."

I trust no one.

Life Lessons at the Pet Supply Store

Look what I found in junk drawer #3 my carefully archived photos!  This is Hen, holding baby Daisy in early 1997.  At that time I was living in Concord, CA, and LB and I had just the two girls.  LB went on a week-long business trip, so I flew home to Milwaukee with the girls by myself.  Daisy was NOT happy to be LB-less, but once she found Uncle Dave, she decided he'd be a good substitute and the two of them spent much of the trip in this position.  Hen was due back in Madison before I was returning to California, and at my pleading he cut short a workday and came back to Milwaukee again to help out.

Now I get to return the favor.  Andra is going away for a girls' weekend, and Hen will be bringing Baley to Milwaukee solo.  Enter Aunt Jen to out-aunt Aunt Lo lend a helping hand!  It will be quite a sacrifice, leaving my six-pack behind to help out with one very easy baby and eat all my favorite foods -- anything made by my mom -- but that's just the kind of sister I am.

Little Baley

Pam Spaniel is growing very quickly, and spends much of her awake-time playing with Clover, leaping off couches onto Clover, and getting schooled by Clover. 

They had a very charming doggie conversation the other night: Pam had hopped onto the couch during Sacred Alpha Time, and initiated play with Cover by sinking her sharp puppy teeth into Clover's neck.  Instead of mouthing her or swatting her with her paw, Clover gave her a very serious I am so not kidding growl (she knows that if there's too much pestiness, LB will exile them both from the Couch of Privilege).  Pam immediately went into ears-hang-low mode and touched her nose to Clover's nose.  Then Clover licked Pam's face a few times to show there were no hard feelings.

Despite Clover's reminders that she is the boss-dog, Pam does not suffer from feelings of lack of entitlement.  No, she does not have any preferred television shows, but she does understand that holding the remote is a sign of power.

That bit of knitting Pam's nuzzling is a dress I'm making for Olive, for next week's Chumash ceremony at Keshet.  I haven't done my wikipedia homework to find out what Chumash is exactly, but seeing as how it's going to involve singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow in Hebrew, Olive obviously needs a rainbow dress to wear. 

I'm closer to done than it looks: this dress will be sleeveless, worn over a long sleeved tee and navy leggings.

The other day I got this note from the inclusion coordinator at Keshet: 

Hi Jen-

I wanted to let you know that I took Olive to a rehearsal today in the music room, and as we were all leaving to go back to class, I had eight 3rd grade girls swarming around me asking to be Olive's "buddy" for the ceremony.  One girl named J. sat next to Olive during the rehearsal and helped her do the hand motions to one of the songs.  They are singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow in English and in Hebrew, and every time they sing the word Keshet, I get all emotional.

Just though I'd share!
L

Whenever I read things like this I think, "What happens when Olive's a teenager and they don't all want to be her buddy anymore?"  And I remember something a man said to me at a pet supply store nineteen years ago, when dachshund Ruthie was a puppy.  This was an Angelino pet store where everyone brought their pets with them to shop, often carrying their dogs in satchels and letting them pick out their own toys.  Ruthie was, of course, in my Friends of Channel 10 satchel, wearing a rhinestone collar: like every other dog there.

Another shopper admired the dark markings Ruthie had around her eyes, which made her look like she was wearing well-applied eyeliner.  I said, "Well, she's a puppy and those marking might change down the road."  He looked at me and said, "But they are here now."

 

Your Mother-In-Law Is on the Roof

A man asked his neighbor to look in on his ailing mother-in-law and his cat while the man took his wife on a vacation. The neighbor was to send a telegram if there were any issues that might need the vacationers' attention.  Well, after a few days, the happy vacationers received the following telegram.

Your cat is dead. STOP
It was chasing another cat across your roof and unfortunately fell to its death. STOP
I don't think there is much you can do but I thought you would want to know. STOP

The good neighbor received the following telegram in reply.

How awful and what a terrible way to break the news. STOP
You should have built up to it so we could adjust slowly. STOP
For example, your first telegram should have said, "The cat is on the roof. STOP
Then the next day you could say "it is chasing another cat" and so on. STOP

The neighbor quickly wrote back,

I am very sorry that the way I broke the news was so upsetting. STOP
BTW, your mother-in-law is on the roof. STOP

* * *

I could say it's good to be back home in Northbrook, but that would be a boldface lie.  It sucks to be back.  I had such a good time, visiting with Lo and Andra, inhaling Baley at every opportunity, seeing the Gonsier cussies and their children, and even dashing through airports OJ Simpson style (most of you are old enough to know which incarnation of OJ I'm referring to).  I was young and free; I was thoughtless and irresponsible in the best possible way.  Meaning, I was in charge of no one's bathroom activity and I could leave hot cups of liquid wherever I wanted. 

Maybe if I'd had a hard flight on the way back, the shock of re-entry would have been mitigated.  An unexpected, eight hour layover in Denver might have made it feel good to return to my house and family--broken alarm system, miscommunication over the three middle children's placement testing schedules and all.  But dag-nabbit, I had easy flights.

There were bistro experiences, lots of them.  On the first day we went to a bistro with my cousin Jeannie and her whole family.

Emily, Julia, Jeannie, Marc, Maya, Doug

I had something called a Mexican iced coffee.  It is a crying shame to learn one's life's purpose this late in the game, but apparently mine is tipping back in a cafe chair, drinking expensive coffee drinks while an adorable baby gets passed around.

Baley with Julia and Maya

After the bistro, we all went shopping at an outdoor art fair.

At one booth, we found some beautiful silver jewelry, including this bracelet:

Do you see that?  The entire bracelet is the dachshund's body, with its head at one end and its tail on the other.  When I saw this bracelet of joy, I made a sound only dachshunds could hear.  My sister, who was buying herself some earrings, told the proprietress we'd be getting the dachshund as well.  The owner said, "That dachshund isn't cheap."  I was preparing to say something like that I could live without this bracelet (I couldn't--even the thought of saying such a thing makes me weak in the wrist), but Lo told Andra and me to get lost.  When she rejoined us a few minutes later, she presented me with the dachshund bracelet.  My sis is even nicer to me now than she was mean to me in our childhood, and that, that is saying a lot.

That evening there was a small pizza soiree with Lo, my brother-in-law John, Andra, Baley, and Lo's friends Kristy and Stasia.  Here's Kristy holding Baley:

Another day, another fete.  This time my cousins Kenny and Amy (the elder siblings of Jeannie) came over with their families in tow, and Aunt Nora.

 

Cousin Amy brought a fruit tart--two of them. We also had enchiladas, tamales and various salads and I didn't make any of it.

After the visit with the cousins, Lo, Andra, Baley and I went back to the street fair to pick up some last minute gifts.  I did think of my children and there were certainly moments of missing Olive, but... not many.  There.  I said it.  I went away for three nights and although I had occasional fond thoughts about the Sullivans left behind, I felt no sharp pangs.

That night I had sweet Baley all to myself and took many of the photos you saw yesterday.  She is an angelic baby--rarely fussy and never inconsolable.  She and I had bottles, we had satisfying digestive experiences, and we played with toys.  And then I ate her.  Just a little bit off the toes -- you can hardly notice.

Andra and Baley left in the morning, and Lo and I had the day to ourselves.  We went out for lunch at an Italian--you guessed it--bistro.  Here's the table:

Then we went yarn shopping at Uncommon Threads, where I did not buy the new Rowan book and five skeins of Kidsilk Haze in a grassy shade of green.  (Is there an acronym for Husband Reading Over Shoulder?)

We spent much of the later afternoon on Lo's back patio, knitting and having little treats.  Look at the lovely tray Lo arranged for us!  My sister really knows how to entertain.  Coca Cola in little glasses with umbrellas, Ghirardelli non-pareils, and...Vitamins.  She is always looking out for me. 

That night, we ate enchiladas on her bed and watched The Bachelorette. I get a little weepy when I remember that last night, and not just because of the awful stunt bachelor Frank pulled.  Lo and I are eight years apart, so we never got to be girls together.  Now, however, we're just about the same age.  Siblings = underrated.

This is a very long post, but even if you didn't read to the end, I think you get the gist.  I had a very, very good time and you should all feel terribly sorry for me!

Below the Belt

Yesterday I received a package in the mail from my mother-in-law, marked "Emergency Rations."  I knew at once the box contained yarn and by now the whole world (or those who matter--you folks) know I've shamelessly gone off the wagon and plumbed the shallows of the yarn store.

Guilt finds no purchase in a field of Araucania, in beloved black-watch plaid colors, no less.

Along with the yarn, my mother-in-law included this envelope:

 

A bit of background: as I'm sure I've told you, LB's family had a lab/shepherd cross named Vera at the time Ruthie and I were admitted into the Sullivan Salon.  Now, in Vera's prime, she could have easily wrapped Ruthie in a large rectangle of pastry dough, skewered her with a toothpick and snapped her up like the cocktail weenie she was.  But by the time Ruthie and Vera met, Ruthie was a sprightly and fearless two-year-old and Vera was well into her double digits.

Dachshunds are known for nothing if not trash-talking, and Ruthie was no stranger to the art of the barb.  There were unkind remarks made: references to Vera's girth, her somewhat arthritic gait, and the unfortunate patch of white on her chest that gave her a slight resemblance to a certain killer whale.  I think the taunt that got to Vera the most was the frequent observation Ruthie made about her pointy head, that point which gave her a somewhat...otherworldly appearance.  Pointy-headed Veeroid!  Pointy-headed Veeroid!

Inside the envelope was a carefully constructed anonymous note, mailed at least fourteen years ago.  I had forgotten Ruthie's skill with scissors and glue, and her facility with tweezers.

Dogs can be so cruel.