My mom keeps asking for a story here and I keep telling her, I got nothing. It’s cold and snowy, with no end in sight for awhile (another foot forecast for tomorrow!), and I’ve taken up residence on the couch, snuggled under a fleece sherpa blanket one of us got in a holiday yankee swap. And I’m not moving until Spring.
While on the couch, I’ve been alternating between my winter hobbies: reading, knitting, Netflix, and sewing. To wit:
Reading:
Knitting:
Netflix:
Sewing:
And always, the help:
I don’t know how long this baby quilt has been kicking around, or how long ago I started it, or whose baby I even started it for. Frankly, all I care about it that there is one less unfinished project in the sewing room!
It’s a bit odd of a color combination – pink, yellow and gray – but it works (I think). Rather than buy more fabric for a backing, I pieced leftovers together and, honestly? I kind of like the back more than the front! It has a certain je ne sais quois. Then, I did another spectacularly crappy machine quilting job, because I need the practice. (This one just might get donated.) And, alas, there are virtually no good places in this house to take quilt pictures, so these must suffice.
Pattern is an old Quiltmaker Magazine pattern I’ve had kicking around for ages, it was republished back in 2008 (see here). The bee print is from the Heather Ross “Briar Rose” line.
I’m not entirely sure how, but the VEB talked me into going for a hike this afternoon. Our high today was 27 degrees and there’s snow on the ground, and normally on a day like today you would find me on the couch with a blanket and a book. Instead I decided to be a good sport and bundle up, and we went and stomped around Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge for a solid 90 minutes. It was cold enough to affect my camera, not to mention my hands, so there’s just a few shots to share from today:
That last one is a not very good picture of a northern flicker, which is actually a kind of woodpecker. A bit later on we saw an enormous bird, which was either a hawk or an osprey, but just as I finally got the camera into focus the bird flew off so we don’t know for sure. However, neither flicker nor possible osprey can top yesterday – we saw a bald eagle fly over the parking lot at our local Stop and Shop! I saw one last summer at Acadia, sitting on a tree, but up until yesterday I had never seen one in flight, and it’s pretty cool to see their wingspan.
Other good things from this weekend: a mango smoothie, obtained at the Winter Farmer’s market at Russell’s Garden Store in Wayland; a tasty turkey and sweet potato chile I made last night (recipe from Cooksmarts – a menu planning/recipe service we recently subscribed to); and finally taking down the Christmas tree and reclaiming our living room. (Well, mostly reclaiming the living room – I’ve vacuumed three times and we’re still finding pine needles in the carpet…and on the cats…) Soon there is a hot bath and a book with my name on it, and later after dinner (which the VEB is cooking!) there is chocolate cake, our reward for freezing our butts off this afternoon. Afterwards, a cuddle with a kitty or two, then what will hopefully be a good night’s sleep before the workweek begins in the morning!
I don’t know where I’ve been this month. Working, I suppose, and Christmas shopping, and in the past few weeks a number of family gatherings on all sides of our families. There was also a fair amount of knitting, so in lieu of anything else to write about I’ll chronicle it here.
First, we got a Christmas tree and after decorating it with some store-bought ornaments I thought it was missing something. We never did get around to finding a star for the top of the tree, but I did cement my insane cat lady status by knitting some cat ornaments:
The insanity was perpetuated by the VEB, who insisted that I knit additional ones to resemble our cats. And then I perpetuated the insanity further by rummaging through my yarn stash to find some variegated brown yarn that sort of resembled our part-calico cat, and then searching three yarn stores to find some gray/black yarn that sort of resembled the gray tiger cat. Happily the third cat is black, so I had her covered. (Pattern here.)
***
For the “every time I turn around someone has a baby” box, which is running low at the moment, I also finished a “Mignon” baby sweater (pattern here); it looks a little odd in the proportions because it’s meant to be cropped. It was a pretty easy knit though I do so wish I could figure out how to do cables without a cable needle.
I found a ridiculously cute sheep button for it:
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For the third Christmas in a row I knit the VEB a hat, which I don’t have a picture of because he wore it to work. It has little Cthulu’s on it and it was a pain in the arse to knit but he likes it, that’s what counts. (Pattern here.)
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Finally, it got cold enough around here to haul out the box of woolens. Much to my chagrin I found five different hand-knit mittens, all missing their match. I have no idea how I managed to lose five different mittens over the summer and fall, but alas I did. This necessitated whipping up a fast pair of mittens for myself, which I finished this morning. Happily I was able to use some chunky blue Malabrigo yarn that I’d already mad a hat out of a few years ago. (Pattern reference here.) It’s such an old Mainer thing to do – using up what you have, and also making something you need rather than buying it. (In general I am not a very thrifty person, so I like making note of it when I am!)
***
There are other projects I started and put aside, like the gray Campside shawl that will probably be the death of me, not because it is hard but because I can’t stand looking at it any more. Meanwhile, I’m thinking about what I want to knit next year. After a decade or so of knitting I’m finally feeling like I’ve finally become an “intermediate” knitter, and I’m looking at patterns that are a bit more challenging to knit. There’s also a purple sweater in a bag, just waiting for a second sleeve to be finished, and several socks that need mates. In the meantime, I think I need to whip up another pair of mittens just to be on the safe side. Here’s to happy knitting in 2015!
I had to finish the Maine quilt in order to make another one for a coworker who is expecting pretty much any day now. I was doing well until I came down with bronchitis a few weeks ago, and then all I could muster was to walk past the sewing table and sigh, lacking the energy for pretty much anything. I was worried the baby would come before I finished the quilt, but happily I finally got the binding on this while on vacation last week and delivered it today. *phew*
Calypso Kitty took a special interest in this one…I think she somehow knew it was going to live in a house with a dog. Cats seem to sense these things.
Pattern – the usual “Yellow Brick Road“, baby sized, using pastel batiks (including little baby elephants!)
It was a quiet, gray day, though a little on the warm side for this time of year. With a nor’easter forecast for tomorrow, we decided to use our afternoon off to take a walk. We’re fortunate to live not far from Minuteman National Historical Park, and so we drove over to Concord to Meriam’s Corner, where the Battle Road Trail begins. This spot commemorates the Battle of April 19th 1775, which was the official start of the Revolutionary War.
It looks no different than anyplace else in New England this time of year – fields lying fallow, trees swept of all their leaves, everything turned a shade of gray or brown. There were odd flashes of blue, though, which turned out to be dozens of these plump little bluebirds:
Bluebirds, of course, are a symbol of happiness, and it’s sort of strange to think of them taking up residence on an old battlefield, however many hundred years ago the battle may have occurred. Especially today, when a different battle is raging in our country.
***
Growing up in Maine, where everyone looks like you, it’s easy to say you aren’t a racist, and it’s easy to say you treat people based on who they are and not their skin color. When no one is there to challenge you, there’s no real way for you to put those beliefs to the test. I spent 4 years living in Memphis, Tennessee and I learned quite quickly that it’s just not that simple. Maybe it should be, but it’s not. When your white, well-educated, church-three-times-a-week Christian colleagues routinely use the n-word in conversation, it gets complicated real quick.
Those years in Memphis were the first time I lived in a city where I was a minority — at the time, the city was ~65% African-American. There were a few times when I’d stop by the Kroger after a night class and I’d be the only white person in the store. For a long time, I felt guilty about admitting how I felt when this happened: not unsafe, exactly, but exposed. I was afraid that deep down inside I must be racist to have felt that difference, to have even noticed everyone else in the store was black. I wanted to prove race didn’t matter to me and so I’d take extra care to look people in the eye, say hello, chat with the cashier the way one does in the south. And then I’d walk to my car in the dark with my heart racing – but not for the reason you might think. The truth was, the longer I was in Memphis the more I came to know two things: first, if anything happened to me people would blame me for having the audacity to be out after dark by myself; and second, they would find a black guy to blame whether he was guilty or not. Because that’s just what happens in the south.
***
It was only recently, in conversation with a black colleague, that I realized that the Otherness I felt during those Kroger trips is how black people feel in white spaces. ALL THE TIME. But I could easily get back into white spaces; despite the city demographics, I worked with predominantly white people and the students in my graduate program were mostly white. The problem is, most institutions – most schools, most banks, most legal systems – are predominantly white. Even if they aren’t, the systems themselves were created by white people and, most likely, were originally designed to keep black people out. This is particularly true in the deep south, parts of which still can’t get over the fact that they lost the Civil War. People who say there’s no such thing as white privilege infuriate me, because they are so STEEPED in privilege they take it for granted. We may have taken down the signs that said “NO BLACKS ALLOWED”, but the sentiment is still quite real – particularly in the south – and to deny that is to simply deny reality. And don’t whine that we have a black president now, don’t tell me we’re a post-racial society, because clearly that’s just bullshit.
***
Anyway. Here’s what I really want to say: back home in Maine, there was recently a really bad accident involving teenagers. The driver was probably texting and two other kids were killed. The driver was given a much lighter sentence than many had hoped for. The weird thing to me was not the public outcry over the sentence, but the number of people who acknowledged she was a teenager and did something stupid and would pay for it the rest of her life. People said, “teenagers do stupid things and this is a particularly tragic example of it, hey it could have been one of OUR kids”…but few people were calling for reinstating the death penalty.
The kid that was shot and killed in Ferguson probably stole some cigars and in the arrogant stupidity that a lot of teenagers have, refused to get on the sidewalk. A police officer subsequently fired 12 shots at him. How is it that one dumb teenager gets to walk away from killing other people and another dumb teenager gets shot dead in the middle of a street for disobeying an officer? How can we honestly say race had nothing to do with it, particularly in a state like Missouri? And more importantly, how are we okay with it?
The other thing I shipped off to Steph was the red baby alpaca blanket I’d been knitting. None of the pictures I took really captured the color but trust me, it’s red. I went with red because a) it was gender neutral; b) it went with the lobster quilt; and c) I figured any baby born close to Christmas needed a red blanket. Obviously something knit out of alpaca is hand-wash only, a terrible idea for anything baby-related, but it’s SO soft that it belongs next to a baby, practicality be damned. Also, I soaked this thing a number of times and the water consistently ran pink. I would feel terribly if it ruined anything really nice; I’m hoping I got the bulk of the excess dye out. I did warn Steph, just in case.
I used the Purl Dreams pattern, modified with a hemmed edge instead of a ruffled one; details here for you Ravelry folks.
I make no secret of the fact that high school was, hands down, the worst 4 years of my life. One best friend left for private boarding school, and then another drifted away; a more subtle exit, but no less gone. I was lost, and lonely, and a little weird, and – frankly – bored. And angry, though it took me a long time to realize that was what I was feeling. It took me even longer to be able to see how those years were affecting me, long after they should have. On top of all that I thought I was so fat, all 130 pounds of my 5’7″ frame, and so homely with my braces and glasses (eventually replaced by contacts) and hair that just never seemed to work. Now of course I see the pictures of me from that time and think I was delusional (though the glasses, those 80s era large plastic frames, were really terrible).
I’m not quite sure how it happened, I assume it was Jenny who first suggested it, but my sophomore year I somehow found myself on the debate team. Ah, here were my people – smart and stubborn and articulate and funny and just a little weird. (Maybe a lot weird in a few instances?) Honestly, we were a bit of a motley crew, singing John Denver and Violent Femmes songs in the back of the bus, having spent our Saturdays at a debate tournament at some other far away school. Fun for us was spending weeks on end researching agricultural policy topics, copying and pasting snippets of information onto long yellow legal pads, crafting arguments for both sides of any topic. Occasionally inter-school romances would crop up – in particular a boy named Christian, from Cheverus, who wrote me long philosophical letters for years, even after he transferred to Exeter. He was beautiful, if absent-minded in a way that even amused my mother, who came along sometimes as a judge. The letters are still kicking around somewhere, they turn up every few years when I move; I should probably do us both a favor and burn them, along with all the other sentimental detritus I’ve accumulated over the years, but I can never bring myself to do it.
***
Stephanie was my debate partner, a year younger than I. We won some, we lost some, and then we spent a few weeks at summer debate camp at Bates, listening to Suzanne Vega and throwing water balloons with a bunch of wealthy kids from all around the country who didn’t know how to eat lobster. It was a bonding experience, to put it mildly. And so, when I learned through the Facebook grapevine Steph was expecting a baby, I immediately set to work making a Maine-themed baby quilt…even though she now lives in Michigan. Once a Mainer, always a Mainer.
Yet again I used the Yellow Brick Road pattern, mixing lobster, sailboat and lighthouse prints with polka dots and solids. In the interest of finishing it I had to machine quilt it and, well, it’s not my finest work to be honest…but in the spirit of not letting perfect be the enemy of the good, I finished it and mailed it off a few weeks ago. Imperfect quilting aside, I totally love this. It’s exactly what I imagined, and I hope the baby Mainer-in-Exile enjoys it.
On Tuesday I trotted myself back to the doctor – not my regular one, of course, because God forbid my actual PCP see me, but another physician in her practice. A MALE doctor, in fact, which I normally refuse to see unless a life threatening situation happens, because (gross gender assumption to follow) every male doctor I’ve had has been totally condescending and egotistical. This one did not disappoint, though he did tell me I could take off the stupid mask they made me wear because I was coughing so much (and, incidentally, sitting under a big sign that said PLEASE NOTIFY US IF YOU HAVE TRAVELED TO AFRICA RECENTLY.)
In five minutes I was diagnosed with bronchitis and lectured about how antibiotics would not be effective as it is viral, blah blah blah. Instead he wrote me a prescription for an inhaler and some “cough pills”, saying that these pills don’t work for some people so if they don’t work for me, just call back and he’ll give me the other kind. You know, the kind with CODEINE that actually MAKE YOU SLEEP.
(DID I MENTION I CANNOT SLEEP?????)
And then he proceeded to suggest that I try rubbing Vick’s vapo-rub on my feet to help my bad cough.
(Insert my patented “you have got to be kidding” look on my face.)
Indeed, he insisted. Apparently, Vicks on your feet is a thing, except as Dr. Genius explained you have to wear socks because otherwise the Vick’s gets everywhere and you can slip and fall. He said that he himself has never tried it because he hasn’t yet had bronchitis, at which point he knocked superstitiously on the wall (sheetrock, not wood, by the way).
I thought, I really need to find a new doctor.
***
I’m lucky. I have excellent health insurance and plenty of sick days thanks to my employer. I also have a health savings account, though at the moment it cannot be accessed because the company was bought and we’re in a transition period. Because I have to hang onto my receipts to get reimbursed, as opposed to using my health savings account card, I was able to see approximately how much this stupid cold had cost me:
CVS Minute Clinic Co-Pay $25
OTC Medicine (Robitussin, Mucinex) $15
Puffs Plus $2.50
Doctor Office Visit Co-Pay $25
Inhaler (after insurance) $30
“Cough pills” (benzonatate) $6
Total $103.50
It’s cost me over $100 for what amounts to a bad cold that turned into bronchitis. In retrospect I should have skipped the CVS clinic visit, but at the time I was convinced I had a sinus infection and was just in no shape whatsoever to drive 45 minutes to my doctor’s office (assuming I could have been seen). Now, I’ll get reimbursed for almost everything out of my health savings account (except for the OTC and tissues) — but my point is, being sick is expensive. The sort of expensive many people can’t afford. The federal minimum wage is $7.25/hour, so for people making that it would take them 14 hours of work — almost two full days — to pay for being sick.
Let that sink in for a few minutes.
***
Of course the stupid “cough pills” don’t work, and I’ve had two more nights of virtually no sleep. (I have utterly no idea how I am functioning, let alone going to work. Typically I need 9 hours of sleep to just find the coffee pot.) I called the doctor’s office this morning and they said, “we’ll call you back”. That was 13 hours ago. Out of desperation, I hauled out the Vick’s and an old pair of socks.
Still coughing.
It’s 3:30 am on a Tuesday and I have self-diagnosed myself with the plague. Or bronchitis. And/or a sinus infection. I haven’t slept for more than an hour straight in days, and “sleeping” means “propped up on the couch”. My sides ache and my throat is sore from coughing. However, despite these symptoms I have been denied antibiotics because I have not been miserable long enough. I am told that I must be miserable at least 10 days in order to get medicine. I understand there are issues about overuse of antibiotics, but you’d seriously think I was trying to score oxycontin the way they act at the doctor’s office. It’s like the soup Nazi on Seinfeld: “no medicine for YOU“. Meanwhile, I wake up retching because I am drowning in my own phlegm.
(It did not go unnoticed that yet again, I got sick shortly after starting to take a multi-vitamin and going back to the gym. Never fails.)
The good news is, E happily potters off to the store fetching ginger ale and tissues, and politely looks away when I’m throwing up. Of course, it’s inevitable that in a few days the table will be turned; he’ll be the one moaning on the couch while I make the grocery store runs. Make no mistake about it: love is not princes on horses or princesses with tiaras. It’s cheerfully running errands when the other person has lost the will to live.
***
Frankly, I have lost the will to do pretty much everything except hit “play next episode” on Netflix. I’ve watched some pretty terrible TV these past few days, ranging from the good-if-you-don’t-mind-plot-holes “The Tomorrow People” to the truly inane “Secret Circle“. Both shows feature main characters in high school, going to either gym class or dances in between fighting evil, parents blissfully unaware and/or missing. They are essentially teen soap operas disguised as sci-fi/fantasy — Dawson’s Creek meets Heroes, if you will. Honestly if I’d have developed superpowers in high school I would have been screwed; for one thing, I would have had to fit in my crime fighting between band practice and debate tournaments. And please, these kids who just say, uh, I gotta go do something and then go running out of the house for what must be days on end? That would have *NEVER* flown with my parents. I was interrogated with the who, what, when, where and how long before I left, with strict curfews in place. It was years after I graduated from high school that I even had an inkling to the things I’d missed — like keg parties in the sand pits. [The irony of course being, I would have hated it anyway. I’m too much of an introvert and too little of a drinker. The real punishment would have been making me go to such a thing. Two of my favorite quotes from roughly that time period: Sartre’s “Hell is other people” and “Men go crazy in congregations / they only get better one by one”, a line from this Sting song. (True story #1: I once hit a crow while driving down route 26 in South Paris, Maine just as the line “murder of crows” from this song played in the car. True story #2: both my sister and I listened to this album every night for several years in college to help us go to sleep.) ]
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Meanwhile…I have been trying to knit this shawl for weeks and I have only managed to look at it for the past couple of days. I’m not a shawl person really, but I liked that the design totally reflects those rain showers we get, where it starts with a slow pitter pat of raindrops, so slow you could count each drop, then builds a little bit more, and a little bit more until it is pouring out. I’ve finally got to the “it’s pouring out” part, which means there are well over 300 stitches on my needles and completing each row feels heroic.
It’s not really a difficult pattern but I have managed to screw it up several times. Since I plan on wearing it more as a neck warmer than an actual shawl I’m okay with the fact that some of my rows are off-pattern, no one will know without some careful scrutiny. I also made another concession and used an acrylic/wool blend for the yarn (Berroco Vintage, in Smoke)…I really am not a fan of acrylic, but from past experience I know that I’m going to want to be able to throw this into the washing machine if necessary.
***
Here’s a show I’d like to pitch: a bunch of middle-aged people suddenly realize they have superpowers. Instead of standing over the oven trying to decide if the whole chicken they bought is fully cooked, they could use their X-ray vision. Or instead of having to mediate the cats fighting over who gets to sleep on the heating vent, we could use our powers to heat up another spot in the house. Car repairs could be done with the snap of a finger, and all household chores could be completed a la Samantha Stevens on Bewitched. And there would, of course, also self-healing superpowers, in order to bypass the Gatekeepers of the Antibiotics (however necessary they may be). Honestly, at the moment, short of winning the lottery I can’t imagine anything better.
