Archive for November, 2008
My mother came for Thanksgiving. It was, at best, awkward. She came late Tuesday, and left this morning. She was supposed to leave this evening, and wanted to leave sooner (I knew she’d leave early, and was surprised that she stayed as long as she did). She spent most of Thanksgiving day sitting in the Little Guy’s bedroom, reading. The Little People played happily, while my DH and I prepared dinner. At one point, she just flat-out disappeared. She took a walk, apparently, but didn’t feel the need to tell anyone about it. She did join us for half an hour to eat dinner, and was quite annoyed with the Little Guy because he didn’t eat much. He’s picky, and we know it, but she disapproves, and makes that clear. In the evening, she complained weepily that she couldn’t stand to spend another day closed up in the Little Guy’s horrible bedroom (he likes it fine, btw), and she hates all holidays anyway. (I suggested that she could come out and play with her grandchildren, but that apparently is not the kind of thing she had in mind when she planned to visit them).
So the next day we all went to the park, which was too much like leisure, and she and I went shopping. She shopped angrily, horrified at the existence of jeans in sizes larger than 4, disdainful of sweaters in colors and cuts she doesn’t like, and scornful of shoes with backs or heels, racing from irritating store to irritating store (Although she bought several pairs of jeans, and half a dozen shirts and sweaters. There are no stores in Arizona). And so it went. We went to a Christmas event downtown, with fireworks and music and the like, which the Little People enjoyed; however, it was a relaxing-type event, and she doesn’t approve of such activities, and we rushed quickly through it.
That’s what it was like, the whole time. I tried hard to stay calm, and lost my temper a few times, but was mostly pretty good. It’s OK with me if she disapproves of me; I’ve gotten used to it. But I don’t like it when she tries to make my kids feel bad. They’re good kids. They may not be as automatically obedient as the kids she’s used to being around, but they haven’t been abused into submission either (she works in a DV shelter). I like that they think for themselves, even if it means we need to tell them why they should do something.
Anyway, she’s gone now, and I’m taking bids. Who wants to come visit us next Thanksgiving? The Little Guy’s bed is very comfy. We offer lego assembly, paper airplanes in the backyard, building with blocks, or you can sit around and knit.
My DH took my mother to the airport in Raleigh early this morning (an hour and a half north of us). She was supposed to stay until this evening, but she had to leave early, and would probably have preferred to move her flight up to Friday or even Thursday. (More on that in another post). I was pretty well-behaved for the last few days, but I’ve been unusually cranky today. I figure it’s the effects of three days of pent-up anger. Wierd. I thought I would be more relaxed.
The Little Guy has been the same way today, which is wierd, because he’s the person who likes my mother the best.
I went on a field trip with the first graders today. Evidently, the local convention center/concert venue puts together a Christmas show every year, and do several performances in the mornings for schoolchildren. The theatre was packed to the gills with little people, excited about the singing and dancing (there was no plot to trouble our heads about). The number with 12 dancing santas got a big reaction from the crowd, as did the crowd of girls chasing the 10-year-old Elvis impersonator. Generally, it was pretty hokey, but I’m not the target audience.
The Little Guy enjoyed it, and paid especial attention to the stagecraft. He was impressed when the Christmas tree lights all changed from multicolored to white, and wondered at the appearance of a new backdrop (”How’d they do that?”). Towards the end, they sang a few Christian Christmas songs, and the Little Guy commented, more or less to himself, “Now they are getting to what it is all about.” They ended with a nativity tableau, attended by several large stuffed animals — donkeys and cows and ponies, some of whom were robotic, and moved their heads from side to side. He leaned over and commented to me, at what was supposed to be the most sublime moment of the production, “The animals look confused.”
That’s my boy. MST3K is genetic.
He was right; hey did look confused.
Those of you who know me and are prone to notice such things are aware of my fondness for earrings, including shiny dangly ones, sparkly dangly ones, beaded dangly ones, and even a few novelty ones (snowmen, the Dodgers emblem, the Alamo, fish, cats, and so on). I have a lot of them; they are easy-to-rationalize purchases (”It’s just one pair of earrings…”), and make excellent, highly-packable souvenirs. Many of my friends and family have realized that they make excellent gifts, too, and I can generally recall who gave me which pair (the African masks, from my grad school roommate; the bronzy ones like fishing lures, from my aunt; the red and green chiles, from my cousin; the shiny grey V-shaped ones, from Bookwyrme; the purple danglies, from the secretary in my department in grad school…).
I’ve long kept my earrings hooked into a bit of lace, an idea I got from a friend in grad school, who thumbtacked her lace to the wall in her bathroom. I hung mine from a chopstick (in lieu of a proper dowel), which I then hung on a wall. Well, for some time I’ve wanted to upgrade this arrangement. It was a bit wiggly and fragile, and once earrings fall, they don’t always rise again. So I got a largeish pine picture frame, and stapled the lace inside it. I had to trim off some of the lace, but I think we will be OK. I (actually, my kind DH) attached a series of cup-hooks to the bottom of the frame for larger earrings.
It’s up on the wall, far out of Miss Baby’s reach, and I’ve put about half of my earrings on it. It looks good. Much neater and safer, but still mildly funky.
So I made something and didn’t totally mess it up.
Filed under: faithPosted: November / 24 / 2008
So, I’ve joined the handbell choir at church. We’ve been rehearsing for a month, and today we played in service. We played your basic Thanksgiving stuff: “We Gather Together,” and “Come Ye Thankful People.” It’s a big, old church, so we played up in the balcony, which was nice. After we played, we sat down, and, since no one could see us, I knit through the sermon. Don’t worry, I was paying attention. And I wasn’t the only one.
It went OK. This choir is quite different from the one at my old church. We have fancy music stands that lift the books up to eye level, which are nice. Fancy equipment aside, these folks mark every single note they have, in colored felt pen (this would have been regarded as shocking behavior in our old choir). We have had exactly one rehearsal with everyone present; there are no subs. Someone was late this morning; no one called her, because no one had her phone number. My old choir director — man, if you were 3 minutes late, she was on the phone.
Here’s the sweater. The Little Guy looks like a blue sneetch in it.
Today, the Little Guy and I went out front to do yardwork. My mother is going to visit us for Thanskgiving, and I felt compelled to do something about the pinestraw drifts. Plus, we needed to get the rest of our bulbs in the ground before it gets any colder. So the Little Guy scratched away at the flowerbed while I raked. At one point he found a dried-out little weed, which he decided to replant so it could grow in the spring. He planted it and stuck a great big stick in the ground next to it as a marker, then watered and mulched it (pinestraw, what else?). He was way more into the futile rescue of the dried-out weed than the planting of the new bulbs. The weed needed his pity, and the bulbs didn’t. A few of the bulbs were starting to sprout, since they’ve been in our kitchen for a few weeks, and I was worried that would be a problem; “They’ll figure it out,” he said, confidently and casually, as if he’d been dealing with bulbs all his life.
Meanwhile, I raked and raked and raked. There’s still plenty of pinestraw all over the yard, and if the wind blows at all between now and Tuesday, you won’t be able to tell that I ever raked at all (which would be an improvement; a partially-raked yard is worse than an unraked one. It’s like a patchy beard). I felt compelled to tell the Little Guy the story of Sisyphus. I think he understood.
Miss Baby loves her bed — at night. Naptime is another matter. Today during naptime, she go up and found some felt pens. She colored all over her hands and feet — not her clothes, the walls, the furniture, or her face — her hands and feet. So she got a bath at 2:00 in the afternoon. After that, we all went to the store together, but Miss Baby fell asleep on the way. So my DH stayed in the car with her, while the Little Guy and I went into Target. She slept almost an hour (it was crowded), and woke up mad. We went to dinner, and she complained up until they set her food in front of her, at which point she said, “yummy,” picked up her spoon, and tucked in. After that, she wanted to run around the restaurant, which I channelled into running to the bathroom to have her diaper changed rather than running from table to table stealing people’s food. Then we went to Sears, where she ran up and down the aisles admiring the power tools while my DH picked up the new vacuum (a canister, very exciting).
She’s non-stop action, this one.
Well, I’ve been working on this sweater for the Little Guy for some time now, sometimes doing small projects for breaks. Last night, I finally finshed. I knitted the last few inches of the sleeve, sewed all the pieces together, and knit the collar. It’s symmetrical, at least. The seams all match; the front and the back are the same length, and the sleeves match too. I was pleased; I had a glass of wine to celebarate.
This morning, I had him try it on. It’s huge. He’ll be wearing it in college. I was disappointed, and it must have shown, because he gave me a big comforting hug. Great. Nothing like pity from a 7-year old in response to a lousy handmade gift. Miss Baby saw all this going on, and came over and gave me a big hug, and then insisted that I put the sweater on her. She grinned, delighted to be wearing her brother’s clothes.
So, now I have to knit baby hats for a baby shower at school. I was going to make cute little berets, but it is a new pattern, and my confidence is shaken. I need to make something small and easy.
This one is Carl’s fault. According to Genderanalyzer, there’s a 55% likelihood that this blog is written by a man. They do add the caveat that “it’s quite gender neutral.”
Not sure how to take that. Maybe I should write a few really girly entries and see what happens:
rainbows, hearts, ponies, pink, purple, pretty pretty.
