Last night when I was falling asleep, this thought occurred to me about LB: At the center of our marriage is the tail-chasing serpent of a fallacy that I am the smarter one, while he is the morally superior one.
Unlike most things that occur to me as I'm falling asleep, this still felt significant the next morning--so much so that I emailed it to LB at work.
His reply was Bite me.
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:
First things first: thank you for your suggestions on which photo to use for Miss Olive's application! We went with pictures #1 and #4, and put them next to each other on the page thusly:
Except we printed it on best quality for the actual application, and on shiny photo paper. I must confess that the pictures and polling of all of you represented the totality of my participation in this application, the rest of which was executed by LB (as suggested in the prior post's photos). Should Olive make it through the gauntlet of the application process and the waiting list and be admitted to this school, I will have ample time to redeem myself by driving to and from Northbrook, every day, twice a day. And then, the number of entries in categories Driving and How I Hate It and Driving, S'okay will grow and grow, one category expanding perhaps a bit faster than the other.
Isn't it good that we don't know the future?
For the moment (and I do mean moment--these things change quickly) it looks like we will be staying in Chicago. These photos are not our 'hood, but our nearest neighboring hood of Andersonville. It's also the location of our dentist, our ophthalmologist, the guy who cuts my hair, and the Swedish deli that sells Solo soda.
The knitting project below has entered the joyless, duty phase of its development--i.e., the second sock. Sigh. The only thing that keeps me going is the anticipation of blocking, photographing, and putting them on my Ravelry page as a Finished Object. LB promises to model with no grumbling, despite the fact that the weather has gone from dead of Winter to Spring allergy explosion in a matter of days.
Speaking of LB and modeling, the other evening at dinner Agatha asked him which of his outfits is his favorite. The changing out of each day's suit before dinner, the ceremonious rehanging on wooden hangers, and the dutiful re-entry of said suit into the Sacred Suit Rotation is something that takes, in everyone's opinion but LB's, TOO LONG.
He said, "My charcoal gray pinstripe suit, a white shirt, and my mint tie with the fish bones." Agatha replied, "You must have thought about this a lot because you answered my question pretty fast."
I had no difficulty getting him to pose this morning.
Several years ago I accused LB of never sharing my euphoric bouts of elation over seemingly small things, nor my bone-grinding disappointment over other seemingly small things. I had examples, like how he experiences only modest pleasure at how clean the countertops are after Team Elvia has been here, and feels a mere flicker of annoyance at how hard it is to find stray raisins against the backdrop of mottled granite. I closed by presenting him this rare gem of insight into his own personality: you never soar.
To which he replied, "...and I never crash."
Now this was interesting. It had not occurred to me that my Mr. Toad's Wild Ride perception of everyday events was not, in fact, evidence of an intoxicating and unique world view, but simply pilot error. Briefly, I entertained the idea of reigning in the joystick, as it were, but this only resulted in emotional turbulence: something akin to the sensation of taking two pseudophedrine, and then trying to nap.
Yesterday when my thrill at deciding on a new knitting pattern led to abysmal horror at not finding the right yarn in my stash, immediately followed by irrepressible joy at happening on just the right shade of mohair boucle, I got the bends. And then I had a moment of self-awareness: as routine as this flight pattern may be for me, it could also make me--perhaps, occasionally--taxing to be around. This was followed by a second and stronger revelation: I dislike moments of profound insight into my personality.
I'm old enough to know that these moments--while tempting in a scab-picking sort of way--are to be backed away from slowly. The wisest course is to call someone for whom my betes noires are old news--things they figured out within twenty minutes of our meeting and decided to like me anyways.
I called LB and asked him, "Am I moody and erratic?"
He said, "Well...yes...but what else is new?"
Hi, this is LB Sullivan, Jen's husband. By way of introduction, I'm pleased to note that Knitters-Knitters has its own category devoted to me. This is my first blog anywhere, so I suppose I'm making my debut in the right place: it's a safe environment where I'm among friends and can make absolutely any remark without fear of retribution!
But let's try to keep it on the straight and narrow the first time out, shall we?
I am the guest blogger today because Jen is sick. While she lay abed (all afflicted) I took Olive to and from the Academy today and worked from home whilst dodging the cleaning ladies and preparing some meals. Since I was generally useful, I heard Jen kindly confer upon me the title of "Best Husband."
Best Husband (BH) is a loaded appellation, since its very existence implies "Worst Husband", "Better Husband," and probably some degrees in between. I admit to being called all of them (though not at once) one time or another. In my case, Worst Husband (WH) is usually given a more graceful flourish, and comes out as "Meanest Husband in the Room" (MHITR). The dual qualifiers of location and the highest degree of offensiveness place this husband-definer at the acute edge of badness. One can only improve from these levels, so there is some relief when this term is thrown out: The end of the argument must be near!
At any rate, it was good to be BH today. A while I can't always hold the title, it's better than being MHITR. Those guys never get anywhere.
This isn't really going to be about Martin Luther King, Jr. I won't be discussing peaceful demonstration as a form of activism, and racism will be referenced only as an oblique aside to LB, as in 'member those weird looks we got the first time we took Dana to "Culver's" in Sheboygan? At no point in this entry will I have a dream. In fact, MLK, Jr. is only relevant here in that at the time when LB I had our first date, it was a pretty new holiday. This means some people had the day off, but most didn't. And while it wasn't a good thing that those first federally recognized MLK, Jr, days had a halting, undecided quality, so much so that even aerospace engineers at companies with defense contracts had to work, it did--it must be said--make it the perfect day to go to Disneyland. Hence, MLK, Jr. Day of 1992 was our first date, and we spent it in the happiest place on earth. Had certain defense contractors seen fit to give their employees that day off in 1992, there would have been no date, and that precarious house of cards that was our early days might not have turned into the fifteen years and six children we have now. But let's not fall into the trap of measuring marriage in terms of years and children. As any knitter knows, it's not the years--it's the sweaters.
Oddly enough, the first thing I made for LB wasn't a sweater; it was a loaf of homemade applesauce raisin bread. LB was ... underwhelmed (imagine the scene in Say Anything where Ione Skye presents John Cusack with the gift of a pen). In fact, in the Dictionary of American Idiom next to the entry for "just friends," there's a line drawing of this very loaf of applesauce raisin bread with the accompanying suggestion see pen scene from "Say Anything." What LB wanted was a hug, but he had to wait four more years for that. After all, MLK, Jr. day was just a tiny infant back then.
His first Jen-made sweater occurred toward the end of 1992, when we were Officially Dating (as opposed to dating off the record). You will notice there is no photograph of this sweater: picture a somber, manly shade of navy, a strangle of cables, and design shaping so unusual that LB looked as if he'd broken out in blue, discoid tumors. The fact that he wore the sweater more than once, while reading Alice Munro's Lives of Girls and Women, and in public no less proved to me that he was indeed In it for the Long Haul.
By early 1993 we were engaged. This meant he was entitled to--yes--a second sweater. It was knit back and forth on two needles, and made exactly according to the pattern instructions. It's not a terrible sweater, and he wears it to this day.
And since it's made from 100% acrylic, it will survive End Times: pilled, squeaky, surprisingly heavy yet not warm, but still alive.
There was a long hiatus during which no sweaters were made for LB but many longies, hoodies, booties, blankies-blankies, 5-hour baby sweaters, February baby sweaters, and baby surprise jackets were made. I have a vague memory of knitting LB a Shetland boat neck sweater in a shudderingly precious shade of lavender, somewhere between the birth of Agatha and arrival of Dana. LB alternates between claiming he "lost" this sweater, and protesting that no such sweater was ever made. Apparently, the colors I like to knit with are not necessarily the colors he likes to wear.
By Dana's arrival in February of 2000, I had completely converted to Zimmermannology and was one step short of ringing people's doorbells to tell them to cast out their straights and accept knitting in the round as the one true path to sweatery. The sweater pictured here, in colors we both loved, is the Spiral Yoke sweater from Meg Swansen's Handknitting. It was perfect in every way. The yoke lay smoothly, kept from bunching in the back by strategic short rows. And the corrugated ribbing? A touch-poem.
The only problem is that LB's arms are about 2 inches too long. The results of my attempt to lengthen the sleeves with rows of single crochet are embarrassing to both of us, but my suggestion to shorten his arms instead was rejected out of hand (sorry, couldn't resist).
In the fall of 2001, we had our sixth child. For her first 4 or 5 months she was an easy-peasy baby who had not yet discovered the thrill of staying up all night. Her nickname was Calmnessa. I had the energy to take on a long-term knitting project, hence, another sweater for LB. Here we see EZ's Medusa yoke sweater from Knitting Around, in unspun Icelandic. The pattern called for the yarn to be used doubled, but I wanted to make the sweater lightweight, and used just one strand on 2.5mm needles. I don't say this often, but in this case, I wish I'd swatched.
Here LB demonstrates the comfort level of this sweater.
By the time Olive was a year old, I was too sleep-deprived to consider knitting an LB-size sweater on needles smaller than #10 US. Voila--an Icelandic yoke pullover from The Best of Lopi. He wears it often, and it's perfect attire for shoveling snow when the temperature is 20 degrees Fahrenheit or above.
LB has no complaints, but I'm plagued by the glaring, flagrant, neon sign-like mistake I made in the color patterning above the hem. He claims no one has ever pointed at him and laughed when he's worn this sweater in public, but he may just be sparing my feelings.
I have a good feeling about this seventh sweater (or the 6th, depending on whether or not you believe the lavender boat-neck ever existed), which I began on the 16th anniversary of our first date.
Also known as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
