Knitters-Knitters

November Comes in on Little Rodent Feet

On Friday Olive came home from school coughing and with runny eyes.  By evening she had a fever.  She spent most of Saturday lying on the couch, moaning, with eyes half-mast, occasional taking breaks for Advil and an Albuterol treatment.  I am so glad we bought a nebulizer instead of renting it, when Olive got that bad respiratory bug over the summer.  It has now officially saved us from at least one ER visit. 

Halloween took us by surprise.  We'd assumed trick-or-treating would start after dark, but this year Northbrook went the Milwaukee route and did it in the middle of the afternoon.  The doorbell started ringing at 3 p.m., and the children had to quickly don their costumes and get out there before all the good, peanut-free stuff was taken.  I didn't even get pictures. 

Olive and I stayed home, of course.  At around 4 p.m. she spiked a fever, began wheezing and got the chills.  Time for more Advil, more nebulizer, clean warm jammies and a nap.  Olive and I got into the big bed where she promptly fell asleep on my chest.  Occasionally she'd move a bit to make sure a knee was digging into my liver or to cough sputum more directly onto my face.  We lay there for two hours, like St. Julian and the leper, and after Olive woke up she looked and sounded much improved.  I had a suspicious tickle in my throat and feelings of pre-flu deja vu (do you all get that, too?  The ominous feeling of familiarity that preceeds illness?).  It occurred to me that this is the second Halloween in a row where Olive was too sick to trick-or-treat.

In the evening we set a mousetrap in back of the television set.  Clover had been sniffing around back there and we suspected our autumn visitors had returned.  We watched two DVR'd episodes of The Big Bang Theory, and during that hour we caught three mice.  Each time one died, LB would set a new trap.  Twenty minutes later we'd hear a snap followed by frantic scuffling, and then, nothing.  Some children enjoyed this more than others.  During the night we caught one more mouse, and in the morning Clover got to it first.  LB found Clover slinking around with the trap in her mouth, tail dangling from her snout, and when he snatched the trap away from her, she growled.  We think she believes she killed that mouse herself.

Today, Olive is back to chortling and gleefully tossing nearly-full cans of soda, while I'm miserable and shivering and sweating and having leg pains and coughing and feeling hot behind the eyes.   And LB--between giving me back rubs and fetching my various pills and suspensions and making the children their meals--actually had the nerve to suggest I was laying it on a bit.

I suggested we nap together.

He Complains...

...but I think he'll feel a little sad when the sweater's washed, blocked, and on its way to its rightful recipient.

The next project will be LB's birthday sweater, no joke, for being such a good sport with the modeling.

In Which LB Totally

...rocks the maternity sweater.

The sleeves are complete.  Only the collar is left to go!

Saturday

Some of you may remember that last Christmas, Agatha made LB a book about his workday.  For his birthday, she continued the theme with a peek into his weekend. 

I'm cute when I'm asleep.

¡Gol, gol, gol!  ¡Golazo!

Notice the time on the clock.

Here I am!  All refreshed and well-rested!

When things get slow, Olive likes to push Dana out of his chair.  She's smaller and lighter than he is, but freakishly strong.  Plus, she has the element of surprise on her side.

Anatole likes books about the Avatar.

Heavy on the starch, please.

The pictures don't lie: he does indeed get to control the remote.  Occasionally.

Ah, too true.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Today is LB's birthday, meaning that once again he and I are the same age.  That sweet, 45-day period when I can pat him knowingly on the shoulder and say, "Take it from someone who's been around here a little longer than you have..." is over. 

I had big dreams of making LB a new sweater, but we've all been pretty consumed with baby knitting these days.  I can't post pictures or Andra might see.   She's not a regular reader of Knitters-Knitters (yet), but every so often Hen drags her here in a panic, so that she can reassure him that regardless of whatever bons mots I may have written that day, he's still The Funny One in the family.

Here's where Lo interjects with, "Yes, but looks aren't everything."  Oh, I know you sooo well, my brethren.  Right now OFD is exclaiming, It rubs off! -- his way of taking credit for anything amusing the three of us might say -- and Irma is about to comment with something that leaps headlong over the yawning divide between compliment and schmaltz.  Don't do it, Mom.  We're eating, or we'll soon be eating...

Cheesecake.  I have shown you this cheesecake many, many times.  LB has requested no chocolate, so instead I'll be making a sauce that involves boiling canned cherries with copious amounts of sugar and dark rum.

Given the fact that LB's birthday sweater is still in the idea phase, he's getting this little parcel containing skeins of Rowan Magpie Tweed with an attached note.

Can you see that one skein in there, the very dark burgundy?  That's your yarn, Dixie, and it's going to be the main color in the Icelandic yoke sweater I'm making from The Best of Lopi.

Here's a picture of the sweater, in different colors, of course.

LB's will be a crew-neck pullover.  Being a tall, thin Presbyterian who spends much of his off-time putting on fake voices for the amusement of children, he's halfway to being Mr. Rogers already.  Adding a button-down sweater to the equation would just be pushing the point.

Happy Birthday, LB.  I concur.

It's the Berries

What gives you comfort?

I've been thinking a lot about this question since last Monday.  When one brokerage house buys another, the result is a series of large and stately games of musical chairs where all employees must reapply for their own jobs--but with slightly different job titles.  Last month the music started for LB's particular job, and when it ended, my LB was left with no chair.  This is not quite the same as having no job, but we can now see unemployment from our back patio without having to squint.  I do not like the view.  I'd rather see Siberia.

In the game of cataloging comforts, I impose the rule that no human beings can be on the list.  There's always the risk of forgetting someone or large groups of someones, and the blanket statement of "family and friends" invokes phone service options more than it does real people. 

Pets, however, are a whole 'nother ball game.  Clover Blossom Sullivan: warm fur, wet nose, with a limpid beauty unblemished by the burden of intellect.  I have heard of people who love their dogs very much, but who will not kiss them on their little doggy lips.  Strangely enough, some of these people will happily eat cilantro.  There are many, many things I overthink, and I am grateful that the notion of where my dog's tongue has been is not one of them.

This is more about energy than comfort, but equally important in difficult times. The Tall Black Eye.  Three times the caffeine, in the smallest cup size Tsarbucks recognizes.  It's a drug and it's legal.  Also, when I order it tends to come out, May I please have a tall black guy?  This amuses the barristas no end.

You knew I'd mention yarn, but this is more than yarn.  This is yarn for a specific new project, given to me by my parents.  It's a project to begin after I finish my current project, and here it is: fresh and new, on deck, with needles and all.  And when I finish it, there's another project in the hole.  Even if I never bought yarn again, there's more in my yarnorium than I could knit up in this lifetime.  As Shakespeare said, "There are more skeins in your yarnorium, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your Ravelry projects queue."

Law & Order.  Whether you prefer vanilla (the original) chocolate (Criminal Intent) or strawberry (Special Victims Unit) there's a Law & Order for you, and there has been for a long, long time.  As it was in the beginning, for now and ever shall be: ripped-from-the-headlines crime drama without end.  I defy you to turn on your set and not find an episode already in progress.  As Jesus said, "Law & Order is always with us."  

Okay, He never actually said that.  Don't bother checking; there's no reference to Law & Order in the OT, the NT, or even the Apocrypha.  But that's only because television hadn't been invented yet.

And then there's cranberries.  I love cranberries.  I love that they're New World fruit.  I love that they're sour, and I love that there's nothing to write home about until they're cooked.   Crohn's Disease means fresh fruit is risky business, but a cooked cranberry is your ileum's friend.

You already know my feelings on cranberry panettone.

There are no bad cranberries. 

I nearly traumatized my children a few weeks ago when I threatened to scoop the can's contents into a bowl.  It has to stay in shape of the can or it doesn't count!

Cranberries play well with others.

Try to say "Craisin" without smiling.

And then, there are chocolate-covered Craisins.  I don't think I need explain why these are good.

So I repeat, what gives you comfort?

What You Say and How You Say It

I don't say y'all since I'm not from the South, and if you've heard my voice you know this.  But it does look good written, doesn't it?  Y'all.  I like to write it.  Y'all makes me sound warm and hearty.  Paula Dean-ish.  I think I'll go throw an extra stick of butter on that large piece of beef in my crock-pot, for no apparent reason.  

My idiomatic expressions are pretty much Great Lakes all the way, and I did have to smile when I read Suse's comment about people who say, "Do you want to come with?" and just end the sentence right there.  We do that in my Homeland: you know, Milwaukee.  We also don't go over to people's houses, with go by their houses.  "Let's go over by Karl's house."  You'd think this means we're on our way to Karl's house where we intend to stand outside and shuffle our feet awkwardly, but no, we really do plan on going inside.  Wanna come with?

I don't generally go back and check my work, but I do want to clarify that I have, at one point or another, broken every grammar rule I mentioned yesterday.  Words are touchy subjects in themselves, aren't they?  Years ago, my ex husband and I nearly came to blows over whether or not pour and poor are homonyms, with him taking the "pro" stance.  It got nasty.  We began insulting the speech patterns of each other's families, and from there we went to the question of which one of us was from the Midwest and which one was not.  I'm from Milwaukee, and the ex is from here.  I referred to his part of Indiana as the Deep South, Carson McCullers Country, a Flannery O'Connor story just waiting to happen.  And he called my home Canada.  The idea of us both being from the Midwest was never considered, as unsatisfying an answer as "agreeing to disagree."  

Within minutes, the debate of poor and pour led us to the real question, the one we argued over the most, the one true fight, the only fight: which one of us was smarter?  This wasn't an argument where we'd defend our position with logic quizzes, curriculum vitae and the testimony of reluctant witnesses.  This was two adults waving their arms at each other and shouting, "I'm smarter!" 

"No, I'm smarter!" 

It sounds kind of funny now, but I assure you: no one at the Pictionary table was laughing that day.

Not so many years later, after LB and I were married, the ex said to me (during one of our more amicable phone calls), "Okay, let's hear it.  Which one of you is smarter?"  I told him, "LB's smart enough to say I'm smarter."

The ex said, "Now that is smart."

Legs

LB came home sick from work today, and immediately took to bed with his Vitamin Water and a large hazelnut chocolate bar.  I am an attentive wife, so I rubbed his outrageously long femurs for him (this is more innocent than it sounds) and even rubbed his foot when he got that thing where the middle toe tries to break ranks and go off on its own toward the calf.

It got me wondering: if a person is short, does the point where a touch on the thigh feels suggestive rather than therapeutic begin earlier than it does for a tall person?  We tested this out, and though our sample group was small it seems that the Zone is defined according to scale rather than absolute inches.  My knee is no more erogenous than his, despite the fact that it's about 7 inches closer to the action.

That is all.

Father's Day, as told by LB

Father's Day this year was unlike any other, but also more of the same.

There was Agatha's healthy interest in my employer, Smith Barney, in evidence yet again through sculptural representation.

There was Sabina's unerring ability to recount everyday details, as she rendered our living room tableau with humor and accuracy.

And there I was, on the couch, in typical weekend recovery mode with Olive by my side and the DVR unspooling hours of Confederations Cup soccer on ESPN (the USA managed a huge win over Egypt and earned a freakish advance to the semi-finals through Brazil's domination of Italy).

While the soccer kept me glued to the set, the girls managed to bake a carrot cake, decorating the top with well-wishes for my day as well as the only assertion about their dad they could muster (or fit on the cake) --- that I'm smart. Well, they're generous too!

In the late afternoon, we paused for the presentation of cards and good wishes. Along with the aforementioned Smith Barney diorama, and the black and white sketch of me and Olive on the couch, I was given cards by the boys, and two woolen knuckles in green wool crocheted by Daisy. We will call them the Iranian Knuckles of Non-Violent Democratic Protest, or "Anthro-Knuckles" if you are a Waldorf school grad.

Pix (she is Pixie to my LB) and I also sandwiched in a walk on a humid Chicagoland afternoon: Olive rode quietly in the stroller while we aired our hopes and fears among the manicured lawns of Northbrook. As usual, Pix had the brilliant insights, I offered the occasional apt reflection. It's a role I'm comfortable with --- maybe not the smartest man in the room --- but endeavoring to be better than I was the year before.

A Father's Day Treat

I had intended to take Saturday off (meaning no post on Sunday) but then I made these delicious cream cheese rolls and had to tell you about them.  I used the Pioneer Woman's cinnamon roll recipe for the dough, but for the filling I took three 8 oz packages of cream cheese, blended them with about two cups of powdered sugar, grated peel from two lemons, and about 1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice (this is per log -- if you make the dough according to her recipe, then double everything I did for the filling and frosting).  The filling should be thin enough to spread, but not runny.

I spread the filling over the rolled out dough, then poured two 6 oz packages of fresh blueberries over the spread-out filling.  I rolled it up, sliced and baked per the original recipe (400 degrees, about 20 minutes), except I didn't have enough round cake pans so I also used a muffin tin.

For the icing, I used 1/4 cup butter, 1/2 cup lemon juice, and about 2.5 cups of powdered sugar.  I heated it over the stove mixing continually, then poured it over the finished rolls (you don't necessarily have to cook it, but I prefer not to have any crunch of sugar in the glaze). 

I knew they'd be good, but I had no idea how good they'd be.  If I'd known,  would have paid more attention to my measurements and written them down as I went along. 

When LB brought the children home from the park I made everyone eat one, even though a warm blueberry cheesecake roll was probably the last thing they'd have chosen as a snack on such a hot, humid day.

Olive ate two rolls.  Sabina managed to sneak off and shower first, but then was forced to eat her roll like everyone else.

Fair is fair.

 

Happy Father's Day!