Spring is overrated.
It's a convenient season to dislike if you live in the Great Lakes since we tend to skip it altogether and go straight from 13" of snow to unbearably hot and humid. This year, we're getting the dubious honor of true spring and all that comes with it for me: allergies. Panic about preparations for the summer and next fall. That feeling of having the covers yanked off the sky and exposing everyone, pale-legged and black-socked, in the harsh light of the unfamiliar sun. And just as I am about to enjoy some amusement over the pasty natives, I look down and see that I, too, am exposed.
I know I'm not alone in this hurry up and wait discomfort of spring, that sense that I'm supposed to be doing something. I'm late for something. I forgot something. It comes to this: I don't like transitions. Olive expresses her dislike of transitions with vomiting, tears and occasionally, dropping to the floor and refusing to move. I express it with morning jitters, an overwhelming sense that everything I have done up until the moment has been capricious and poorly planned, and a dull ache in the right lower quadrant.
There was a time when I liked Spring. When I was younger, I remember spring restlessness felt more like joyous anticipation, an I am Sixteen going on Seventeen sort of perspective on the future. But now I know it all ends up in whistle-blowing Nazis and an uncomfortable mountain hike in the wrong footwear.
Anyways.
Let's think of something cheery, like a game of $16,000 pyramid. The clues are Salted caramel popcorn, Close-Face, a Shetland Rainbow, and Dapper Sullivans. Answer? Photos not yet downloaded from Jen's camera.
First, the salted caramel popcorn: the recipe was given to me by Miss Susan. Do not make this popcorn because once you do you won't be able to stop. The next thing you know, you'll have eaten three batches: one with m&m's, ones with the fake m&m's that contain no peanuts, and one with Hershey's Hugs. You will also hate yourself with the passion of a thousand suns, and your dentist will natter at you in a language halfway between English and Korean. It is the caramel corn of self-loathing.
When I was a child, my mom would describe any food I wanted to try that was out of her comfort zone as, "what the Goyim eat." We're not talking about ham hocks, pork rinds and beer-battered shrimp: more like cheese curds, peanut butter and jelly that comes together in the same jar, or even crunchy peanut butter. Inexplicably, black beans, rice, picadillo and fried plantains was not Goyim food, nor was a Cuban sandwich made with both ham and pork. But a fluffer-nutter sandwich? Displeasing to God. Treif. As you can imagine, Mom's characterization of American staples in no way eased the religious confusion I felt as a child.
This caramel corn made with mini marshmallows, bits of pretzel and chocolate candies would have been dinged as Goyim Food, if my mother were aware that such a treat even existed. Interestingly enough, the only person in my household who wanted nothing to do with this delicacy was LB, the one true Goy among us.
Clover has never enjoyed being photographed, and has less patience with it in her delicate and aged condition. Pam, however, thrives on it. When we first got Pam I wondered why her breeder had not kept her as a show dog, given her perfect Blenheim splotch. Now I know why. Pam exceeds the breed standard in height and weight, and appears to be still growing. She weighs 22 pounds and our veterinarian insists she in not overweight. She's simply a massive Cavalier spaniel.
Pam, however, has no idea of this. She loves to lie along the spine of the couch in a cat-like manner just like thirteen-pound Clover, and then finds herself, inelegantly, collapsed between the back of the couch and the cushions.
If I sit on the couch to knit Pam comes up behinds me, sits along the back of the couch, puts her front paws on my shoulders and rests her head along the side of my neck. Sometimes she'll let her body sag until I'm wearing all twenty-two pounds of her around my neck, like an enormous fur stole.
If I turn and face her she will press her nose to mine and just stay that way: no licking, no sniffing, just extreme face to face contact, so close that if I keep my eyes open her eyes appear to blur into one giant eyeball. We call this doing "close face."
A work in progress, using just about every color Shetland I have in my stash. I hope to complete this shawl at some point during teacher appreciation week.
The handy thing about autism being described in terms of a "spectrum" and Keshet meaning "rainbow" in Hebrew is that I have a built-in excuse to indulge my love of color when knitting for folks on Team Olive.
Lasty, LB and Olive in their new grey suits. LB's is from Brooks Brothers...
... but Olive's is courtesy of her beloved Beata. As you can see Olive is very proud of her substantial -- if slightly pasty -- gams.
