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Friday, October 31, 2003
I’m pulling in more and more these days. Limiting myself to easy to define, uncreative, bean counting tasks, not allowing myself any sense of anticipation. Got that wall built about as high as I can, now. If the family crumbles I’ll at least have some sort of place to duck. They have never been known for doing things with simplicity and ease, but they sure can cause havoc when they crash. Very terrible-two-ish.
Decided too, that I shan’t make a single Christmas gift this year. Well - I’ll make socks for LD but that’s about it. I need confidence and energy to make gifts and a little time would help too. All gifts will be ordered from the Southern Supreme Catalog. Backing out of everything else I can, as quick as I can. 90 miles west of me, two extraordinarily frail, stubborn, illogical seniors are wobbling around in a dance of misery. They could collapse any moment and the daughters will need to catch them or, at least, toss some sort of cushion beneath them, or - if they won’t allow that either - have to sweep up the debris.
I can enjoy the present - the day to day - but I am utterly frozen when it comes to looking forward to anything.
posted by Bess |
7:08 AM
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Thursday, October 30, 2003
Dear friends.
Remember:
No situation can be so stupid that it can’t get stupider.
Take your comforts wherever you find them. You will need every one.
All things flow. Nothing, even this madness, lasts forever.
When you can’t take any more - take a walk.
posted by Bess |
6:46 AM
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Wednesday, October 29, 2003
Pressure continues to mount concerning my parents. Not much I can say about it till I talk to my sister today. Just that it’s terribly difficult. What we’ve done up to now has been easy in comparison to what we face. I want to run and hide. rats.
Weird, too, that in this time of shifting responsibilities, when I have to do stuff I hate doing, which is mostly making decisions for others, the rest of my life is pretty nice. I’ve never had so much fun with BD. Delicious cool rainy dark days make me feel even more snugly homebody. The county just announced their holiday closing schedule and I get lots of time off this year. LD is coming home next week. And the nicest people are just hugging me with their care and concern. Yes. You all know who you are. You are wonderful.
Eh. No cloud, right?
Plugging away on the program for the KRRetreat. Ought to have everything down pat by Sunday night. Then a couple of days to let it settle. If I didn’t have a home situation to dread, I’d be so excited about this retreat. I’ll be visiting with old friends and making new ones. It will be enormous fun.
Confession here - with the other demands on my attention, (you should see my desk at work - even I am embarrassed by this much clutter) - I haven’t even touched my wheel in ages. It looks so forlorn. And the heaps and piles of roving just begging to be spun seem a little sad along the den wall. Last night, as we watched a movie in the den, they sort of whimpered from the corner. So many plans unfulfilled.
But this is enough to make me decide to postpone the Kureyon purchase. Well - that and the fact that I dropped $$$$$$ on new clothes last weekend. If, when I get around to making that round-the-bend sweater, the color is no longer available, I think I could spin up my own.
‘nother confession - gained back the .2 lb I lost last week. So, hey, who cares about .2 lbs, right? Not even I do, that much. Think, though, I’ll spend a little time soul searching and see if I can get back on the down elevator this week.
Gad this is so dull. Where are my wits?
posted by Bess |
6:56 AM
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Tuesday, October 28, 2003
No news. Nothing to say. No wit, no clarity, no flash of vision. Eh. What a horrible entry for a blog. This has to be why so many of my diaries have only Januarys in them.
I actually am knitting stuff, I just don’t want to write about it yet. And I have DEADLINES LOOMING . New demands must be met and so something must give. Fortunately, this year I could let my extended professional life be the sacrifice. It hasn’t been very rewarding lately anyway, so, like clothes that make you look fat, it got tossed. I’m skipping the annual state library convention. Pretty much being the invisible lady this year. And it feels sort of sneakily good to just say ‘let somebody else deal with that’. Naughty girl. Eh. I’ve put in my time.
I just began reading Barbara Kingsolver’s book of essays “Small Things”. I’m supposed to lead a discussion about it in 2 weeks. I quite enjoy the group I’ll be talking to but I have never liked Kingsolver’s books. Oh. Shame on me. I only read one and hated it. Bitchy women and weak men. The ubiquitous setting for about 70% of modern fiction. Didn’t finish it. This collection is her answer to 9/11. The title entry is very Episcopalian. Not surprised. Her historical research is inaccurate but if you accept her premise, that the downtrodden eventually will rise up to crush the ruling class - it makes sense. I don’t agree, mind you. It’s usually the educated sons and daughters of the middle class who rise up - and in the chaos they create, the downtrodden loot. But watching an artistic type deal with horrified grief - with collective grief -will be fascinating. I like essays anyway. I like to read them. I like to write them. Heck - what is a blog but a series of essays - all about the author.
So - I really do have nothing to say today. I’ll close with a quick family report, for those readers who are also kin; Daddy’s out of ICU. This is good. LD is going to be home next week. This is better. He will be enormous help right now and when I told him, last time we talked, how much I needed him, he was glad to hear it and quick to offer himself. He is such a wonderful man.
posted by Bess |
6:50 AM
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Monday, October 27, 2003
Autumn in VA usually offers up two weekends of splendor so sublime it makes your heart sing. This past weekend was our first, and though I didn’t get to spend it glorying in our woods and rambling with BD along country back roads, I did get two long drives in while going to Mom’s. Our forest is still fairly green. We’re along the river bank and the water holds the warmth a bit longer than up on the higher ground. But once off the river banks it is a muted glory of rich burgundy, deep to pale gold, vivid, if not pulsing, oranges and several shades of lingering greens.
When I drive up to a wall of color, on the slate blue highway, just before a curve, I seem to feel my soul reaching for something - some freedom it can not have confined in this carbon-based shell. It’s a nostalgia, a sweetness, a memory, a dream. It’s a longing to be one of those black gum leaves. It’s a hunger to encompass, to submerge - to reunite - with that huge universal soul from which I suspect we are ladled - each to occupy a single body and make its way along the quest, refined, to reunification. And though our journey is a solo one, our bit of soul never looses its receptors that keep it in touch with its source. For me, the autumn countryside is like a window into infinity. Even a brief glance keeps me a little more balanced throughout the rest of the year.
Daddy had a rough weekend in hospital and mama had a rough one at home. I did what I could to comfort and help and by Sunday p.m. he was stronger though exhausted. I left him asleep, holding a printed-out email from our cousin George, in Iraq, and the Colts game blaring. Believe it - that is a vast improvement over Saturday.
I have been wickedly spending money lately. Lavishly. Flamboyantly. Guiltily, but deliciously. Every October, when the last of the summer tan has faded I replace my shamefully expensive department store makeup. I suppose I could have put what hadn’t been used last spring in the fridge, but I never remember to and it would probably gross out BD anyway, should he see it there. Without air conditioning, stuff in the bathroom is not fit to use after a VA summer, so it gets dumped instead. Come October, I give cute young things, in black outfits and vivid eye shadow, complete freedom with the canvas of my face and a pretty substantial portion of my checkbook.
Well, of course, this is a regular event. But I also have been wanting a new winter coat and by golly, I walked into a store and there it hung - First thing through the door. The color, the cut, the fabric. Everything. I even found this chic hat with velvet hatband and little bit of veiling to match. Payday was last Thursday. Pay check is much smaller now. Truth is, I’m not actually buying things I hadn’t actually intended to buy, and I did pass on the Jones of New York blouse in a particularly flattering garnet red silk. Still, I do feel a little weird, tossing out $$$ as if I were a Rockefeller. ... well, okay, as if I were as rich as I think a Rockefeller is - not as if I really were. Heck. I’m shopping at Penny’s not along the Avenue Montaigne.
There have been a couple of other crises in my life - situations that portend the shift from one place to another -one role and another - one reality to another . Always, as a part of that process, comes this weird shopping spree - as if I could buy enough to fill the hole left by the departure of the old life. Of course, I know the only thing that will fill the hole is to live the new life, but at least I shall be properly dressed.
Thank heavens for Visa.
posted by Bess |
6:46 AM
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Saturday, October 25, 2003
Back to the city again today. The wheel of life turns another notch. It is such a rich canvas painted in deep layers of color and experience. It isn't always easy, happy, playtime fun. Living it is frequently the hardest part of all. I wouldn't pass on any of it - even this time of painful change.
I'll be back tomorrow after an extra hour of sleep.
posted by Bess |
5:45 AM
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Friday, October 24, 2003
I guess I am not a true artist. When the going gets rough artists are supposed to immerse themselves in their art, missing all the signs of pending disaster, forgetting to eat, thereby giving themselves that ethereal artistic look, or using artificial stimulants to help them block out such distractions as traffic and hospital waiting-rooms and piles of ImportantPapers thickening on office desks. Right? Right?
Although I’ve had lots of long lingering nothingness moments over the past 3 weeks, I have barely knitted perhaps 4 inches on anything at all. I’m even working on 4 inch pieces, supposedly to make meager knitting at least productive. I just can’t create when I issues press on me. Too sensitive by far, my only recourse is to talk. talk talk talk talk talk. I get this from my mother. At least I don’t tell complete strangers about other people (the way mama does) but I do chatter like some sort of overwound headbobbing metal toy. We all do. sometimes when I’m with mama and pretty much any of my sisters, I can hear the sound we are making with my out-of-body ear - the one in the head of the self who steps out and looks at the idiotic things said-self is doing.
So yesterday we were back in our favorite NeuroScienceICU waiting room, with other stressed out families, waiting for news from the inner sanctum. Dad was awake when we left - but resisting, as usual, all medical advice. I hope this was just the wearing off of anesthesia. It was obvious he needed rest and equally obvious that the more the family lingered, the less rest he’d get, so we didn’t stay long. Besides, we had to get Mama to her Dr., ‘cause she was coming down with an infection too! Yikes! This is not good.
I didn’t stay the night in the city because I have an 8 a.m. appointment today but I’ll go back early Saturday to help mama with the contractors who are fixing some Isabelle damage.
HandsomePrinceBigDarling has been an Oak throughout this whole thing - not moving in on SensitiveGirleyEmotionalCatholicFamilyDynamics - the sort of emotional situations QuietReservedEpiscopalFFV souls are neither born nor reared to know how to deal with - but ready to move in with BigStrongArmsDrivingTrucks, when needed. And soon PerfectAngelBabyDarlingOnlySonAndFirstGrandchild will be home to spread the calm of his Beneficent Glow-of-Idol-dom to these stormy waters.
And one day I shall knit again!
posted by Bess |
6:58 AM
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Thursday, October 23, 2003
Prize Winner
I am so excited. My 4H girl took a 2nd place in the Virginia State Fair crafts competition! What a wonderful bit of news. I’ve been so scarce the past few weeks she hadn’t gotten around to telling me. She had knitted a small purse with a button flap. She’d made the button out of Fimo so the whole project was 100% hand-crafted. Ooo Ooo such a wonderful bit of news. The whole 4H program, last year’s students as well as the Extension agency, is cock-a-whoop with excitement too.
That good news is important, ‘cause the other news in my life is not good. Daddy is back in hospital with fluid on his brain. Not unexpected, but a terrible disappointment. He was admitted on Tuesday, examined on Wed., will be operated on today and by god I hope he will not get shipped out on Fri. Well, I doubt they’d send him home directly from ICU but I don’t really have much of an opinion of the medical world. Technologically it’s certainly impressive, but it is not very humane. Anybody who’s read Bossy Little Dog will know what I’m talking about.
So, it’s off to Richmond for me again today. This time I will take my knitting with me. I shan’t be staying the night anyway, unless there is a sudden downward turn. Instead, I’ll be back on the weekend.
Another bit of really happy good news was a postcard from Margaret from Italy!! I can’t wait to see her photos when we meet up in November at Clara’s Retreat.
posted by Bess |
6:13 AM
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Wednesday, October 22, 2003
Well. I told you I was the Queen of Sugar!!
posted by Bess |
7:58 AM
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When LD was a little one we had a little bedtime routine. He would say “Tell me my things.” and I would start:
M: Love you so much.
LD: Love you so much.
M: Tell you my dreams.
LD: Tell you my dreams.
M: See ya in the morning.
LD: See ya in the morning.
M: Tomorrow is Wednesday.
LD: Wednesday means?
This week, Wednesday means hump day. And Library Board meeting day. And Story hour day. Somehow when I think about that little routine it’s always Wednesday, but there were other days that meant other things. It was really just a way of sending him off to sleep with happy dreams about tomorrow, whatever tomorrow brought. Just that Wednesday always meant story hour day. It’s nice that 25 years later it still means story hour day.
So - been mighty full of kiddy lit lately, with no promise that I’m finished with it yet. But I’ll curtail the topic today, limiting it to the mention of a single book: Sophie’s Masterpiece by Eileen Spinelli.
Sophie is a spider and she is a fiber artist too. I shan’t spoil it for you - it’s just a little picture book tale. I’ve developed a craft that goes with the book when I use it in story hour. I’ll just say, slide on down to your public library and give it a read. And maybe take it home with you. If you’re lucky enough to have a wee one in your life, you might even want to buy a copy for Christmas - that is - if you’re uncomfortable buying kiddy books for yourself.
I’ve just about succumbed to a purchase - I think I must buy some Noro Kuryeon at last. I’ve been lusting over the sweater in the fall Knitters made from this yarn. If I weren’t so lazy I’d go upstairs and look at my copy, but I think it’s called Round the Bend. Whatever it is called it takes 8 balls of Kureyon and if I want the colors to match the way they do in the photo (I do) I’ll need 2 extra ones. That’s $80 worth of yarn. hrm. Well. It’s payday today, but I bet if I call Carodan farms they’ll special order in 10 balls for me and bring it to the Retreat on Nov. 8. I can wait that long and avoid shipping. hmmm. hmmm. well. I am in a shopping mood.
I squeaked down the last .2 lbs last night to make it an even 30 lbs lost. A very good feeling indeed. Nicest of all, the substitute leader who had also been subbing back in May when I joined WW lead last night’s meeting. I got the chance to tell her exactly how she gave me what I needed to make this successful weight loss journey. It’s nice to give positive feedback where it is really deserved.
posted by Bess |
7:53 AM
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Tuesday, October 21, 2003
Getting back to work with a normal Monday, fully staffed, was so soothing. It’s been a long time since I could look at 5 days in the office and feel that replete sigh, instead of a sort of whiney plaint. And then I remember, I’m out of the office on Thursday. Yep. Forgot about that. A long standing appointment, too. Ahh well. Not so normal a week after all. Fortunately, it’s an appointment for fun.
There were piles and piles of new books waiting yesterday. And a magnificent man came in and fixed our 16 mm movie projector. Yes. I still have one of those. And a small portion of the old film collection from the State Library. The quality of 16 mm films made for children between about 1970 and 1985 was so high, so outstandingly good, it is utterly frustrating to see the crap that is made for them these days. I’m not talking about Disney et. al. I’m talking about short animations, small little films that ought to tell a good story without preaching, without those disgustingly insincere female voices. I want to puke when I hear the voices for the good guys in just about every cartoon I see. It’s enough to make me want to be a villain myself. (Remember now, I’m the sugar queen)
No, I am referring to Weston Woods productions based on top quality children’s books, or those phenomenally superb shorts from Canada, and the equally amazing animations from Czechoslovakia - fer cryin’ out loud - a country that doesn’t even exist now.
If ever you get a chance to see the Canadian Film Board's The Tender Tale of Cinderella Penguin, snap it up. Think about it - a penguin Cinderella? There’s another one; Remarkable Riderless Runaway Tricycle. Lord. The cleverness, the humor, the thrill of the chase - when a little boy’s stops by a trash pile and finds a kite. He starts playing with it and doesn’t notice when the trash truck picks up his trike. But the trike escapes the dump, flees through town, pursued by the trash truck, the police and a street sweeper - sneaking through a pizza parlor, ducking into a car wash, and when it hits the roadblock - well.... just you see what a determined trike can do when it has to get back to it’s boy. I am sure my Blackie would have done the same.
There was another film that some lucky library got (and has probably now tossed - I’ve never been able to track it down anywhere) , called Toy Story. It was a clay-mation type of film about a little toy soldier that was given to a baby. The toy’s job was to make the baby happy but the baby, at the creepy crawly stage, mostly threw, bit and smashed it’s toys. After being tossed about a while the soldier fled under the couch where it found all the other toys shivering in fear. They watched warily as the baby crept about till it stumbled and began to cry. Well - you know the duty of a toy - to make it’s owner happy. Finally the brave soldier marched out to sacrifice himself to his baby’s happiness but before he could be destroyed the baby was distracted by the package the soldier came in and said toy’s life was saved.
Not only did the state library have a copy of this, but I also once saw it as the trailer for a movie in an arty theater. It was even cuter on the big screen. And it predated the Tom Hanks Toy Story by a good 5 or 10 years. Clever, witty, funny, 15 minutes long. Animation artistry at its best. And just about impossible to track down in video format. And not being equaled in the short offerings available when I go hunting for stuff for the collection.
Just about - I said above, but not quite. I did find Mercer Mayer’s Frog Goes to Dinner on video - and ordered it. And there are other little triumphs now and then. But I am soooo glad to have the projector fixed so I can still show my beloved 16 mms. Besides, I have yet to see a television screen give me the resolution this ancient piece of technology offers. Call me a Luddite. I’m not really. Our library is just not in the financial condition to drop $$$$$+ on a professional quality DVD projector.
‘nuff complaining. Why is it so much more sophisticated to complain than to comment?
Still picking away at my creative project. S L O W L Y . And enjoying the glorious sunsets of fall. Tonight is my WW meeting. Although I’ve kept my little food journal all week, and according to the numbers I have stayed within the caloric intake I’m allotted - but I suspect I’ve been a wee bit generous with the portions I’ve dolled out. Interesting - it doesn’t take much self searching to see where one pads and cheats and cuts corners. And it’s also easy to see that if I weren’t participating in a structured program, with a quasi public accounting - even though only I and the person who keeps my chart ever sees my weight - it wouldn’t be long before the weight began piling back on. Also - I am really close to being finished - yes - I, Lady Dally of the Ever Not For Pursuing completion - Miss ENFP, herself.
Okay - I can joke, but I will get to goal and by golly I intend to stay there too. I’ve finished things before and I know that I can come to completion. Just gotta do so.
posted by Bess |
7:30 AM
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Monday, October 20, 2003
Yep, yep, autumn is that nostalgic time of year. Every fall I like to re-read the 4 high school books in the Betsy-Tacy series. Any secret BT fans out there? Nobody can capture the crisp crackle of fall the way Maude Hart Lovelace does. I’ve read all her books, but I still like her children’s books best and of them, I like the high school series the most.
My mother found these books for me. She would pick Daddy up from the bus at the branch of the Richmond PL that was the end of the city bus line. Back before 2-car families were the norm, Daddies who lived in the probing fingers of 50’s suburban development would be driven in to some terminal station and whisked to their down town aeries. 9 hours later they were welcomed back by smiling womenfolk and kiddies. I loved it when I got to go in with mama because it not only meant scoping out the biography section of the library but also, if there was enough time, a dash into the Ten Cent Store.
That store was so magical. The two old ladies who ran it were so soft and friendly. They unpacked doll dresses and shoes so that you could take your doll in and have her try on clothes, just like your mama did with you. They also sold candy in bins that you bought by the pound, or wax lips and mustaches and buck teeth, though those, only at Halloween. And they sold Red Heart Wintuck Yarn with little metal foil red hearts folded tight around the end of the skein.
But I didn't regularly ride in with mama. Often she went alone. I would assume a woman with 4 kids probably savored the opportunity to have an adult conversation with her partner. The Betsy-Tacy books were a surprise treat from her. She always looked for books whose characters had our names. Since my baptismal name is Betsy (after Betsy Bobbin in the Oz books) that’s what I went by as a school girl. She didn’t see, or perhaps the library didn’t have, the 4 earlier books, which were actually more suited to my age. But I knew about the mysteries of high school. I even had a sister who went to High School. She brought home Heaven to Betsy and my expectations of adolescence were permanently colored by this idealized blissful representation of turn-of-the-century (the last century), midwestern life in the world’s most un-dysfunctional family.
I never met anybody else who read these books till I was grown and working in the library. Even then, though, only one patron, a fellow Richmonder, knew and loved them. I scrounged used book stores for them till the library had copies of the 10 Betsy books, but I had to wait till they were republished in the late 1990’s before I could pick up the others. After the library hooked up to the Internet I discovered there was a Betsy-Tacy society and for a while I subscribed. It is a little too sweet, though, even for this avowed sugarholic, but I discovered there, the title of a tediously written, but extremely detailed book, obviously someone’s Masters Thesis, that has pretty much every tidbit you’d ever want to know about Mrs. Lovelace and her real family - with “contrasts and comparisons” drawn. That's in our library now, too. I even found out there were male fans of MHL, which surprised me, since I think of these as essentially girl stories. Beware, though, the sprigged muslin background of the home page makes reading the text extremely difficult.
I’m not sure if it is good or bad to have such a rosy picture of family life as a standard. Bad in the way some people think it’s bad to tell kids about Santa, since in the end you have to disappoint them. And remember how much complaining there was the Leave it to Beaver family. I certainly wished to have Betsy’s high school experience. I often enough compared mine to hers, sometimes sort of squinting my eyes, so reality’s edges fuzzed enough to pretend I was having it. I sure did love the clothes - especially those magical hats - the chopping bowl hat, the red sailor, Merry Widows. And balls! Oh those dances and balls. Sigh. We still had them. I was never invited to any, either. I went to a sister school two blocks way from a boy’s Catholic Military school and there were three big dances every year. That’s a lot of dances to not get invited to. But even at that tender age, I knew that doing the frug, the wahhhh wah-ah-ah-tusi, and the boogaloo, were not the romantic experiences that Betsy had waltzing around to Dreeeeeeaming. And I tried going out with a boy I didn’t care for just to go out - and was bored beyond endurance. Fantasy adolescence was much better than reality and I had my fun in college anyway. And even more fun later as an adult. Anyway, I was neither crushed nor embittered by the golden glow of perfect family life.
Still, when the nip of frost is in the air, I get to wandering down the L aisle in the children’s section and spending a bit of time visiting with old friends.
Huh. Well. Not much knitting in this post - barring the mention of the red foil hearts. I did some though, working on my color workshop project. Not ready to talk about it yet. It’s gestating, and besides, it ought to be something of a surprise. Teaching myself some new techniques as well. BD promised to help with is draftsmanship skills.
LD called last night too. We had a long chatty conversation about his hunting trip in North Dakota. He’s had the experience he dreamed of - met people all over the place, made friends, eaten more tender game birds than anybody ought - and has 5 more days left to tramp the prairies and enjoy the vast farmlands of the upper mid-west. He said he’d be home the first week in November. We told him we’d walked over to John Allen’s (where he’ll live when he returns) and planned out his entire future, complete with 6 kids!
And it is now Monday - and my first full work week this month. hrm.
posted by Bess |
7:41 AM
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Sunday, October 19, 2003
Okay - all chores done. Community survey completed. Picked up dry-cleaning I dropped of weeks ago. House is clean. Groceries bought. Nothing left to do today but be creative. Whoopee.
Oh. and I discovered I’d bought Vogue Knitting winter issue at GotYarn on Friday! Whoopee da capo.
Maybe I’ll have something to write about later today.
posted by Bess |
8:00 AM
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Saturday, October 18, 2003
Well, my dear friends,
I am back home this weekend. A visit with my parents to take Daddy to the dr. was very reassuring. I would say they are now merely fragile, and not in imminent danger of another crisis. Lawsee I wish we had molecular transporters so that I could be beamed to their place easily instead of having to put 4 hours of driving into the equation.
All prayers are most warmly welcomed, along with any other positive energy efforts. I thank you so much for your gifts.
I have been thinking a lot lately about creativity - and how it works within me. I have a major project coming up and though I believe the main components have existed in my brain for months, I’ve been unable to see all the steps involved to reach success. I’ve merely been letting it all "cook" in my brain. Suddenly, and fortunately, in the past 2 days, it all clicked.
No. It didn’t all click. More components clicked into place. Yes. That’s more accurate. Lots more components. No matter what project I am working on, no matter what stage it is in, what drives the work is a certain intellectual curiosity and creative confidence pulsing within my spirit. I have to be curious and confident. I think of the projects I've succeeded with - and not just the knitting ones - and they all began with a question - "Can this be done? or "How would someone do that?". Sometimes these questions are just idle playthings I use to while away a boring drive on an interstate, or a long night of insomnia. Sometimes they are in response to someone else’s direct thrust. The questions may live within me for a long time - often plucked up as a topic for rumination while I drive to work - sometimes before I go to bed. Who knows how many of these unanswered, but living questions lurk in my brain. However many, suddenly I'll see or read or hear something that clicks with one of those unanswered questions and PoW! Confidence. There is this certain knowledge that I can do that or this or whatever. It's then that I have to give conscious time to the issue if I want it to develop any further, although, since so many of my creative projects stem from these Eureka moments, I sometimes forget that even after the flash of enlightenment occurs, some projects will need serious step-by-step planning.
I have a so much faith in my ability to put things together in my subconscious that sometimes I leave myself little time to actually reach my goal. Frequently that initial Eurika! is enough for the whole plan to roll out before me, like some magic carpet, or yellow brick road. But often enough, I need several more mini-Eureka! moments to get me along the way. I’ll put the hard thinking into something till it gets blocked, then I have to put it away - slide it back into the subconscious - and let it “cook”. I may not take time out of the day to think on the project, but, like something baking in the oven, I’m aware of it all the time. After all, I don’t park a chair in front of the stove.
Anyway, it looks like enough mini-Eureka! moments have occurred over the past few days to enable me to do the conscious creative work. And I have a weekend right before me. I have some other duties to take care of today as well, but tomorrow - ahh - yes. Tomorrow will be one of those concious creative days. What a lot of fun.
posted by Bess |
7:48 AM
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Thursday, October 16, 2003
Thirty-two years ago I rounded the corner of Lombardy and Floyd and a joyful voice called out to me "HEY BABY!". At that moment I stepped through a doorway into the sweetest world you could imagine. We hopped into a car and drove to North Carolina to pick up a piano - talking non-stop for 18 hours. The next day I told my best friend "I've met TheOne. The one I'm going to marry". I did, too.
posted by Bess |
9:54 AM
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Wednesday, October 15, 2003
Of course there is no fiber news. Not much more news at all, really. Just an interesting comment about living in a community where pretty much everyone knows you. Even as I opened up the building, a 4 year old boy leaped out of his car to run help me push the book cart in from the book-drop. Warm welcomes back, hugs, polite but intelligent questions about my Dad, patient interest in how I was handling things, I’d say a total warm enfolding, yeah, that was what yesterday was all about. My assistant is still on vacation and isn’t expected back till tomorrow but our new part-time help was there by noon so I could get out for some chores. It was pretty much a catch-up day. Sweet, comfortable, makes me remember how good life is.
I even feel normal enough to read the KnitU newsletter. I haven’t been able to plow through it lately, though I never miss reading Knitters Review. That is, and has always been, especially lately, another daily reality talisman. I love it because I can select the topics so easily and the print is big enough for these old eyes to read in comfort.
Tuesday is WW for me also - and once again there was a warm welcome and kind interest shown. And a 3 lb. loss after 6 weeks of excruciatingly slow movement. Had to admit that during the last week of anxiety and tension, the one thing I could really cling to was that WW program. Having a precise eating routine gave me the nicest sense of order and reality and logic. And control.
Interesting how we find help in the most unexpected places. Instead of the stress of things driving me to trash eating, which is extremely easy to do at my parent - where every CheetoChocoCheeseNipCandyCookieDonutCake known to man is to be found spread out on the kitchen counters - it pressed me more closely against my little food journal. Huh. Who’da thought?
posted by Bess |
7:48 AM
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Tuesday, October 14, 2003
I am home. I can only say that to have a safe snuggly warm gentle calm loving nest is absolutely the most glorious thing on earth. Huge arms held me as I stood in the doorway. gentle furry heads pressed softly against my knees. I was still feeling pretty much a failure when I turned at the mailbox. As I drove out into the field and turned onto my praying place things began to fall off my psyche. Just sitting in the parked car, looking into the living room - seeing the music stand pushed up against the table - the green trim around the windows - the golden light from within - the 3 dogs milling about waiting for me to open the car door - Ed always puts the dogs outside when I'm due home so that they will greet me, and so that their barking will give him an early notice. Then he can throw open the door and walk out to help me or hug me - whatever is needed. It's such a simple gesture - but it is such a source of strength and warmth and security.
It was difficult to leave my parents, who I see as frail and fragile, to their own devices. There will be home health coming in today to evalutate the situation and I do have a sister who lives only a few miles from them. I also know that my own tension was begining to become badgering. It is so difficult to stop before you get to deciding someone else's way of life is too awful to be allowed. The hardest thing about all this for me is coping with that sense of failure and inadequacy to deal with things correctly. I have *never* wanted to "make you better" or even to "make the world better" or "work for world peace". I really just want to create a warm nest for myself and those loved ones who are happy in my nest. That's why I've been as successful as i have been with my job. I don't have a burning desire to better my community. I just wanted a warm book nest and it turns out lots of other people wanted one too. When I worked on the PTA I was staggered at how many people I worked with were looking around trying to make things better. I didn't think things were all that bad. But so many helpful types can't wait to dig into your life and fix you. That would never occur to me. I would respond to needs the school expressed, but I would never think up things they ought to have - not unless I was working within a structure like a meeting with school people wanting to get my input. If you don't ask, I'm probably not going to think about your situation. Makes me sound awfully selfish. or at least self centered. Maybe I am. mostly I feel like I'm capable of doing what needs to be done and if I am, you are too.
That's why I am so bad at helping my folks.
I haven't knitted in ... weeks? I don't remember when I last did. I tried to work on Sigvaldi while at my parents, but could not. And thre are other, non-knitting, but fiber related, activities I must do over the next few weeks. It's possible I shan't do much more than think about knitting. I may spin though. That is the more soothing-to-me of the two activities.
There is a royal mess to clean up at work. At least, I know of one - if there are more, they will be surprises that I'll discover at 9:30. Tonight is WW but I don't remember if I scheduled help to come in this afternoon so I can leave at 5 to attend the meeting. If not - I will probably still go weigh in. And I will not go to Tuesday Night Knitters - because I have been away from home way too long. I need to plug myself back into the charger.
So. every 50 year old out there with living parents. Just you get ready. Your turn is coming. And begin talking with your SO now, about what sort of living quarters you want at each stage of your aging process. And by god, be ready to give up old ways and old habits. None of them are worth clinging to if they aren't working.
posted by Bess |
7:07 AM
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Sunday, October 12, 2003
Okay - maybe somethings are better left unsaid.
posted by Bess |
6:51 AM
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Friday, October 10, 2003
Just a quick update to my friends - Dad came through the surgery - 9 hours of it - well. He's slow, but recovery looks good. We are all exhausted.
posted by Bess |
10:45 PM
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Tuesday, October 07, 2003
What is it about short weeks that makes them feel as if they were not quite real weeks? Why do I feel like, if I’m only here 4 days, I probably ought to take a long lunch to go shopping or slip away early and take a walk through the woods with BD? And if I’m only going to be here 3 days, well, shucks. That’s not really going to work at all. And if I did as much 5 days in a row as I can cram into a truncated week, think of all the stuff I could accomplish! Why is perception so often at odds with reality?
Of course, accomplishments don’t mean all that much to a process person. But having been raised in a product household, there are childhood voices that still live and nag, deep in my psyche.
Anyway, this week will have a bite taken out of the middle when I go back to the city for Dad’s surgery. In the mean time I’m soaking up the autumn delights. We even opened the windows in the library yesterday, to welcome in the beautiful air. I feel like Leo Lionni’s little mouse, Frederick, who stored up colors and scents and sounds while the other mice stored up food. When the bleak gray of winter sapped all the joy out of the little mice they asked him to share what he had stored. He pulled from his cache his store of poetry.
Usually in the fall I arrange to take a week off. Last year it was the week after Montpelier - so I could play with toys. I may be able to squeeze in a day or so sometime this fall, but probably not during October - too many other things piling up. But by gum - I am going to be sure to fit it in next year.
I pulled out Sigvaldi yesterday. This sweater was begun long before I joined WW and it is really quite enormous on me now. The neckline hits somewhere half way down my collarbone and after some consideration, I have decided to alter the neckline by decreasing away all the white stitches and knitting a neckband of white, framed with brown stitches. Other than being loose enough to wear another Lopi sweater (albeit knit smaller) underneath - it is a gorgeous thing. It might be nice to try to finish it too, before the KR Retreat - since I bought the yarn there last year and Carodan Farms will be a vendor again this year. Hmmm. It’s a thought. I don’t really seem to hit deadlines very well, but it’s possible - hmmm.
I’ve pulled out my winter sweaters. All of them are pretty huge on me now, though I’m wearing the wonderful alpaca thing I made for my first EPS sweater as I sit and type. The computer room is the coldest and hottest room in the house, depending on the season. Flidas needs a bath - and the cap sleeved cowlnecked Dune sweater is really just way too big to wear in public. I put it on over a turtleneck the other day, to walk through the woods, and it was a great windbreaker! And it was not as itchy with the t-neck underneath. But it has that 1970’s layered look (Do you remember wearing a short sleeved T-shirt over a long sleeved one? Sort of a Florence Henderson Brady Bunch look?) But here in the woods, who’s looking anyway? The Dune is such a gorgeous yarn, and I don’t think they still make that color, that I am tempted to rip it out and make something that fits - but hey - even typing those words feels like more work than I want to do.
Tonight is my WW meeting. This whole week my home scales have given consistent evidence of my body playing catch-up with the weight loss. The metabolism kicked in, the hormones began to pump and the scale was lower than it has been in, lo, these dozen years. And then, this morning, the needle pointed back up to the same old weight I was 2 weeks ago. Is something really sinister going on? Is this some sort of plot? Or is it that, as I near the end of this process, in typical Bess who hates to finish anything fashion, I’m not finishing this diet either. I’m just not sticking to the program. I already know not to drink sodas on the Monday and Tuesday before weigh-ins. But what about Shoney’s salad bar - and vegetables - too much salt? and the V-8. I know that’s a big salt dose. Is it water? Is it secret devil torture? Is it sloppy record keeping? Are the stars lined up to hinder? I thought they were supposed to be my friends this fall!!
Well. It’s moot. I’m in this WW thing for good. and probably for life. Like giving up smoking, I’m really giving up seriously sloppy eating. If the psyche and body want a little rest at this nice new plateau weight, I can deal with that. But the overall thrust will remain in the realm of realistic portions of well balanced meals. I am not going back to the fat old me. She was a costume I wore while I got over empty nest stuff. I am long since over it and it’s time she was returned to the rental place.
Anyway, I shan’t be able to post about it tomorrow, since I will be driving at Crack-0-Dawn to get to the hospital before Dad’s asleep. In fact, I probably won’t post again till Friday or even Saturday. Hence my comments now.
posted by Bess |
7:03 AM
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Monday, October 06, 2003
A little spinning. A little strolling. A little sleeping. A turn out on the river. That’s how I spent my day: recharging my batteries. I didn’t know how much I needed that but I feel ready to calmly face the week - as if the body had soaked up all the vitamins it needed to feed every corner of my psyche and now I’m shielded with a YogicKarmaShieldOfPeace.
The sky was October Blue yesterday, accented with the whitest puffs of clouds, tickled with light northern breezes - dry and crisp and fresh. The soy beans have yellowed and the poke weed’s deep pink stems and purple berries flash from behind the still green leaves. Marsh mallow has turned exactly the burnt orange I love and the salt bush is blossoming whitely. We took the boat to the end of Occupacia Creek and flushed hundreds of ducks, laughing at how we would tease LD, when we got his weekly phone call, about driving all the way to North Dakota when all the water fowl were at home.
I pulled out all my purchases and scrunched my fingers in them. Spun a little of the Cormo roving too - just to get the feel for it. But I have on my wheel some gorgeous blue merino/angora/silk that Jen dyed and I am working on a surprise with that. It’s the angora that prompted the design choices I’ve made and I am excited to see how it will turn out. It’ll be a fairly small project - should be done in a week or so.
We’re still discovering evidence of Isabelle damage though. Oh my - now when I drive home, down the stretch between the middle of the field and the woods - which I call my praying place, you can see through the fringe of trees to blue sky beyond. It hurts, in the oddest way, to loose the deep dark forest. When I first surveyed the woods, right after the storm, the novelty was intriguing enough to be exciting. But twice now I’ve walked the home path and what used to be a snugly darkness is now bright with open sky above. I miss those trees they way I missed LD when he went off to college. I knew I had to accept it and if I wanted happiness I had better find joy in change, but oh how the ache burned. Mind now - this doesn’t hurt as much as waving good bye to my college freshman, but I knew he was coming back and I know this forest won’t come back till long after I am gone.
Man! I just can’t seem to post without sliding into some sort of gloomy report. Obviously there is stuff eating away at me. Well - I know there is - the question is - what does one do about tough situations - how does one pick one’s way through the briars with finesse and delicacy?
Hmmm. Must be Monday-itis.
posted by Bess |
7:29 AM
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Sunday, October 05, 2003
AHHHH. What could fill you more with peace and joy than a day of fiber and fiber people? Sweet companionship. Delicious sensuality. Challenging creative and artistic endeavors. Soft furry animals. Clever dogs. All in the setting of hills, mountains, tumbling grasslands. It’s a refill of the spirit of at least one fiberish woman - a totally indulgent wallow in some of my favorite things.
It’s a 2 hour drive to Montpelier Station from the farm on the river. This first weekend in October is often the beginning of bright colors and glorious autumn vistas. Sadly, most of the landscape around here has a beaten up look to it. Isabel was not kind to eastern VA. Many trees are stripped of leaves on the east side - where the clockwise winds shrieked through their branches, twisting them free before they’d stored up a winter’s energy. These are the same trees that were denuded by drought in August ‘02. What color changing that is going on is strange and muted - a dull grayish green. Since so many poplars were felled in September, the second flush of autumn glory - the deep gold of poplars, shimmering through the partially bare forests will be absent for many a year. Fortunately poplars grow fast and, like pines, are some of the first trees to leap up after a natural disaster.
oh. well. That isn’t a paean to the joys of fiber festivals - sorry to go all gloomy on you. My name truly is not Eeyore.
so - back to the fun stuff. I was registered for the first of Annie Modesitt’s classes, the one on fabulous finishing. Believe it - this is the first knitting class I’ve ever had! And this is the area where I needed the most help. I like circular knitting because I am most comfortable with it - and because my purls are too loose and make gutters in flat stockinette knitting, but I hate not doing something simply because I don’t know how. Seaming has always been my bugbear and Annie laughingly admitted that it’s true for many folk. I don’t mind the fiddly bits of darning in ends etc. In fact, it’s like a final caress of a beloved child to me - but I hate doing a bad job of anything. Well. zip zip zip - what was I reluctant about? My seams are lovely now.
A note about Annie’s professionalism - for her young brother died suddenly this week and she has traversed half the country twice now, to attend to family as well as to teach us - with grace and skill and humor. thank you Annie. And Hi there, Hannah-girl.
Our class ended at noon and KR forumites gathered at the exhibition tent for picnic lunches. There were 7 of us, Carolyn from GA, Evelyn from FL, Anita and Lisa from NVA, Annie from NJ, Jen from Horse Country in VA, and yrs.trly. from UpperTidewaterVA. We were all smiles and laughter and no I forgot my camera but Carolyn had one and I hope she’ll post her pictures somewhere.
It was a cool day, cloudy but not rainy, and it warmed enough to let you go without heavy outerwear. The festival is small enough that you don’t mind going back to your car to drop off purchases and clothing. It was after coming back from my car a second time that Robyn called out my name and hugs hugs hugs were everywhere. Robyn is my best friend from college - the only person other than BD with whom I have stayed in touch. She has a wonderful husband - best of all - our husbands like each other! And a darling daughter who runs her ragged - heh heh heh. They are coming for a dyeing day soon and DD’s friend N is part of the package - making it doubly sweet.
So you can see - the FFF is worth it to me just to get together with friends. But it is also a treat for the fiber enthusiast. It is very different from MD.Sheep&Wool. It is so much smaller. It is entirely encompassable. It is something you can completely savor although I still didn’t have enough time to see much of the sheep trials. Next year for sure. I swear it. I am going to watch the dogs.
But the fiber booths are so much fun to see. And you can really linger at every booth. You can see it all. Touch. Read. Peruse. Fondle. It is really criminal for me to buy more fibers at this point - (says the felon) - because I have enough to keep me busy for eons. But alas, I succumbed and bought a pound of Barbara Gentry’s cormo roving, 6 oz of colored mohair locks, and 6 back issues of Spin Off - including both the ones with the raw silk articles. I did not buy the simply BEE YOU TEE FUL black hat for $70 because I have so many simply bee you tee ful hats. Now - I believe that every woman always needs another bee you tee ful hat but she also has to have the $70 to buy it with. Too bad for me. I am confident and sure, though, that I will find more hats in the future.
Late in the evening I helped Barbara Gentry pack up her booth and then Jen and I drove to Orange for hot coffees and time to chat. Jen was working at the Stony Mt. booth and we’d only been able to smile at each other all day. It was so sweet to let the chatter pour out over hot cups, that before I realized it, it was 7 o’clock!! With a 2 hour drive home over somewhat unfamiliar roads looming ahead of me. A stop in Fredericksburg, for Texas chili took only 15 minutes and I was home by 9 to my hungry, hungry husband. OOOO that chili tasted good. and AHHHH that bed felt good. And now it’s a chilly Sunday morning and I have a couch piled high with fiber. I think I shall go indulge.
posted by Bess |
7:57 AM
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Friday, October 03, 2003
Thank you my dear friends, who have sent such support to me. I feel somewhat embarrassed about grousing so - since my life is really rather comfortable and it’s not I who has crappy doctors with sloppy staff. I think I’ve worried myself out. I feel pretty empty about most of this stuff. And it is of enormous comfort to have ThirdDaughter with the parents right now. How I wish we had molecular transport so that she could pop in more often.
I have not finished SGV and I am not going to try, now. I’ll take it along to show to all the KR folk who’ll be at lunch on Saturday, but I’m not going to beat myself up about it. It’s too bad, but I didn’t make it for competition, I just intended to enter it since it looked like it would be done. I’m on the button band on the very row where the button holes are to be placed and that’s going to take some math. It will be done when it is done.
As for the festival, I shall have a wonderful time and this time I’m taking a camera ‘cause I regretted not having one at Md.S&W. I’m going alone!! - unusual for me. This is just such the sort of thing one thinks of attending with a friend - but since I’m taking a class, unless the friend were taking it also, I’d be abandoning said friend anyway. Besides, I am meeting up with friends. And it’s a small enough festival that I can really see it all. I have a bag of fleece, some long wool type, that someone gave me. I know I read on the Festival web site that one of the processor’s will be there and I’m going to give it to them to turn it into something easy to spin. I am thinking roving to spin worsted, to use with my tapestry loom.
And now for some thoughts on aging. I’ve had a list for a long time, for LD - for when I grow old and he grows nervous, then worried, then terrified. Long ago, when my MIL began to drive erratically, and I told him he was never to get in the car when she was driving, I realized that as we age we don’t realize the sloppy and dangerous way we behave. Perhaps there was an era when this was not so frightening, though I do wonder just how many old homes burned to the ground because Gramma was cold and built a fire on the floor of her room instead of in the hearth. I suspect, at one time, people lived with so many personal dangers and illnesses that a certain routine wariness developed in all, including the aged. But these days; when illness and rough living are not even dim memories; now that the few dangerous industrial jobs have some safety measures applied and most jobs are service types anyway; when we expect to be able to handle power saws, drive 2 ton automobiles on congested highways, drive riding mowers along the banks of drainage ditches; when we think we can sue anybody we can blame for our own stupidity or carelessness, I think we’ve just grown a hell of a lot stupider and more careless.
But there is no denying it - I will grow older and I will grow less able. I’ve already told LD that when my driving makes him want to throw up, he is to take my car away. If I’m still living out here in the sticks, I will either accept a driver or I’ll move. and if I won’t do either, he can leave me home to stew in my own bratty misery. And when it takes me 20 minutes to go to the bathroom, it’s time for me to either have a live-in companion, move in with him, or move into some sort of assisted living. And truth to tell - everything on one floor, someone comes in every week to clean and tidy, hot meals just two doors down the hallway, no kitchen to clean up - sometimes I’m ready to move in now.
I think, sometimes, of having tattooed on my forearm, “at least talk about it”. Or “Obey your son” or some message that can’t be denied - so that when he begins to really worry, I will begin to make changes. What do you think? with little dragons breathing fire on either side? or perhaps victorian with roses twining round like a frame?
posted by Bess |
8:14 AM
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Thursday, October 02, 2003
Well. and I never. Yesterday was a first for me - and for the whole family. Daddy was scheduled to check into the hospital at 6. Nobody but I had had more than about 5 hours of sleep and I woke at 3. The hospital smelled of Clorox - to which both Mom and I are, at least hypersensitive. The wait was tedious, though not particularly long. The interview with the anesthetist and his staff was kind but tense. The doctor seemed breezy and confident with only talk of success. Finally a tiny Asian nurse - the circulating nurse, she whispered to us, with a thick accent - interviewed Daddy a final time.
“When was the last time you ate?”
“Yesterday - except for those pills”
“When did you last have an aspirin? “
“Yesterday”
A pause.
Flip flip flip of some papers
“But when did you last take aspirin?”
“Yesterday morning.”
“Excuse me”
She leaves then returns. In that faint sing-song voice she asks, “When did you last have aspirin?”
In a much more exasperated voice “I told you. Yesterday morning. I take aspirin for my heart.”
The room is tense now. She leaves. She returns. “Dr. M. will speak with you”
The doctor steps in. He’s in scrubs. He can’t perform the operation. For the first time he tries to impress us with the delicacy of the operation rather than the ease with which he will successfully perform it. What is it about surgeons? A confident manner is fine, but only now do we actually hear that he must pry apart the bits and pieces of the brain that govern speech, sight, fine motor coordination to create a window through which his instruments can slide to drill out the tumor below! Aspirin does to platelets what Clorox does to wool - it removes the felting (or clotting) properties of the cells permanently - the same way chlorine removes the scales of wool fibers. This is why it’s used for heart patients whose hearts have trouble pumping thick cloggy blood through ancient weak veins and arteries. But it takes 7 - 10 days for the body to produce new, sticky, clotting cells. Daddy should have been told not to take aspirin starting 10 days ago. The Dr.’s office claims he was told, but there is nothing in all his papers about pre-op procedures that says so.
This is the same Dr’s office that said “don’t worry about a thing. We’ll contact the heart dr. and we’ll be calling you with a date for your operation.” And then there was silence for 2 weeks. and then a hurricane. And the heart dr.’s nurse who “takes care of those patients” was out sick and the rest of the staff just ignored what was “not their problem” and the brain dr.’s office never followed up and here sits my 79 year old Dad thinking the Profesionals will take care of it and the professionals don’t give a rats ahem-part. I guess as long as they get a paycheck who cares. They certainly don’t care that my single-parent self-employed (means if she doesn’t work she doesn’t get paid - there is no leave when you’re self-employed) sister drops $$ on a week off with plane ticket from Oregon. Nor that next week, when they breezily reschedule the operation, my staff is on vacation and I’m supposed to be covering for them!
Some things suck. This is one of them. But the arrogance of the medical profession never ceases to amaze me. And the more “specialized” it is the more arrogant it seems to be. Reminds me of medieval clergy - holding all the keys to your secret fears. Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate medical wizardry. I just hate how much power it has over the congregation, who sits in the dark, unable to read the sacred scripts, having to take on faith both the breezy assurances that god is in his heaven and all’s well, but it’s our fault if things got screwed up.
So. It is all to do again next week, and with far less ease and warm fuzzy comfort than it would have been this week.
I have been unable to knit a stitch on the SGV. Though I’ve sent in the entry, I doubt it will be finished in time to actually submit it. I just don’t feel knitterly inspiration right now. Well. Too bad. I’m back home again now but since I must be out of the office next week again, I’m going to work.
So this is what it's like when things go aglang aglee
posted by Bess |
6:27 AM
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