Ravensegg's Nest

IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR KNOT ALL THAT

2008-05-26T07:17:00.000-07:00

... then you're not in the wrong spot.

We've moved and redesigned Knot All That!

Just click the link, and we'll take you right there.

A Real Holiday

2007-09-07T16:56:00.000-07:00

We were lucky enough to get the Paos all to ourselves last Saturday (yes, those Paos), and I must say that a grand time was had by all.

We drove down the Wisconsin side of the Great River Road, on a beautiful, beautiful day. The Paos were nice and exhausted by an exciting day at the Great Minnesota Get Together (the state fair), so they didn't insist on canoeing or swimming down the Mississippi - thank goodness!

We stopped at many historical markers, watched many eagles, introduced the Paos to the joys of both root beer and root beer floats, shopped a couple fun giftie stores, visited kitties who live in a hotel, ate chicken wings at a pub,

drank spring water straight from the source,

and the lovely Mrs. Pao rode on a carousel.

As if that wasn't enough, the generous Paos also gave us a wonderful bag of goodies! You can see some of them (the Canterbury cloth, the knitting magazine and Ewe Row Counter) at Jeanne and Chris' blogs - but here are the things specific to us:

I lost my struggle for patience and turned the beautiful springlike green & yellow skein into a ball, but the other skein (pink! I love pink!!) is still intact - and treacle toffee, beautiful (and much needed) salad servers, and a wonderful Neil Gaiman book for the Vampire (he is more than halfway through, in spite of a very busy schedule, and threatens to bite me if I don't read it once it's done).

Thank you, Paos, for a truly wonderful weekend excursion - we had a blast!

Yarn Photos

2007-08-08T08:33:00.000-07:00

To those of you who are wondering, "Why did she take those photos of her yarn on what looks like a bed of weeds?" I want to offer this reply:

1. Yes, those are weeds.

2. They aren't even MY weeds. They are my parents' weeds.

3. MY yard is brown. Even my sizeable weed collection is brown and sere. I didn't think my weeds would make a nice background for my yarn. After all, I want to distract the eye from the gooberish spinning job. Look!! Pretty green stuff!

4. My parents' front yard, in spite of dutiful watering (beyond their goober-like daughter's ability), is full of carefully weeded brown grass.

5. They have given up on their back yard, which is so shaded by neighbor's structures and so frequented by their dog that deliberately planted things die. Therefore they do not have much grass, but they do have a very verdant crop of weeds. They are beautiful weeds, too, perhaps due to the distinct lack of green in the surrounding area.

6. Do I need to mention that we are experiencing an unusual number of very hot days this summer, and are *also* in the middle of what seems to be an extended drought?

7. The one good thing about this is that it makes my normal attitude about lawncare ("Don't look at me. I'm allergic to the sun.") look like a political/philosophical statement on land and water management. It's very Green to be Brown.

8. It also means that this year our lawn does not differ much from the general appearance of our neighbors' lawns. We won't talk about the back jungle - er, yard.

So that's the explanation. And I just want to add:

Thanks, mom, for letting me make use of your yard. Even your weeds are superior. And happy birthday!

Adventures In Spinning

2007-08-03T20:20:00.000-07:00

I think I mentioned that I'd gotten a spinning wheel, yes? Well, once I got over feeling intimidated, I went on a spinning jag, and spun up every bit of the roving I got at Shepherd's Harvest - which turned out to be not enough roving at all. But I did learn a bit. Here's what I learned:

Soy Silk sucks. I'm sorry - if you love it, more power to you. But with that teensy little staple and the dusty feeling between the fingers, you can have it. Yuck.

Alpaca isn't easy for a newbie, I got quite a few places where I slubbed, for some reason - but I think if I'd done it after the other ones, I probably would have done better. And it's lovely to the touch!

I like Merino... but boy, there sure is a difference from one fleece/roving to another, isn't there? I have two merino mixes where the merino staple is smooth and long, and both were easy to spin and feel lovely. This one had a relatively short and *very* kinky staple, and was a real bear to try to spin up smoothly... it just stuck to itself and clumped up with the least excuse, even though I prepped this one pretty thoroughly. I think I'd do better now, though, with more experience. The yarn is pretty, though, lovely dye job, and the feel is a real hoot - sort of like very soft sea sponge! (Go ahead, click on the photo so you can see the beautiful color combos and the absolute goober-like job of spinning that was my contribution to the whole thing - you know you want to...)

This was my favorite, a Tencel/Merino mix. It was a dream to spin (so much so, in fact, that I let myself zen out and didn't pay attention to the minor issue of spinning my single to a uniform size - did I mention that I'm a goober?), feels soooo soft, and the yarn is lustrous and silky, has a beautiful drape and color. I just loved it... unfortunately, I only had two ounces to play with. When I can, I'm going to get a nice big order of this!

Has Anyone Here Seen Harry?

2007-07-23T14:36:00.000-07:00

Yes, we have the book. But no, we haven't finished it yet.

This is because the Vampire is 17 years old. It is, in all likelihood, the last time that such a thing will be possible, and so the two of us are reading the book together, taking it in turns to read each chapter aloud.

My son literally grew up with Harry Potter. He was 11 years old when the first book came out, and he and Harry are entering adulthood together, as well.

The Vampire will, in a mere four weeks, be entering College, a world completely independent of the one in which we've lived and learned and bumbled along together as best we could. Like Harry, he is leaving the safety of a world where most things were knowable, if not known, an environment designed to provide a relatively safe environment in which to explore and experiment, to soar and even to fail. For Harry, that adventure involved going to school; for the Vampire, that meant leaving it. But the result was the same: adventure, friendship, discovery, growth, a gain of confidence and ability.

Where our son goes now, his old folks cannot follow. We will still shelter and feed him for a while, but like Arthur and Molly Weasley, we now have little say in what happens to the child who carries our hopes and dreams for the future and the world - we must simply stand back and wait in hope that he will thrive and see fit to share his adventures with us in retrospect, rather than in fact.

Wish us all luck...

Spinning Around

2007-06-09T10:32:00.000-07:00

I'm back...

I won't bore you with the long story, as it's not at all exciting. Instead, I will get to the good news:

1. I went to the Shephard's Harvest, and scored a cheapie spinning wheel. It's not pretty, but it does the job well enough (except it squeaks - suggestions? I don't think it's the wheel per se, I think it's the foot pedal. But I'm not entirely certain...)

2. I got a new camera that theoretically works and everything - except that it's so technical that I'm afraid of it. Plus if I try to zoom to a certain point (a not unreasonable one), the aperture stays all slitted, so all I see is a narrow diagonal slot and a very small amount of view through it... and unfortunately, I can't tell if that means that the camera is flawed, or if that's a function of the camera, itself ("You are zooming too close"). ???

3. I have spun two skeins of two-ply!!!

3a. I thought it was pretty decent, for a first try.

3b. When proudly shown the result, my mom said,

"It's bumpy and lumpy and uneven."

3c. Which made me a bit miffed and downhearted...

3d. I discovered that the one ball of batt that I got in each fiber (I got a ball of corriedale,
and a ball of '75% wool, 25% silk') was not actually enough to make a sizeable project, even though it seemed like a lot at the time. And now I am finding that 8 oz. of corriedale does not make the same amount of yarn as 8 oz. of 'wool & silk'. Clearly it takes some experience to figure out how much of what sorts of wool make how much yarn...

3e. White yarn with navy bits in it, when rinsed, results in watermelon-pink rinse water.
It's a mystery!

So tell me: is this lumpy and bumpy and uneven for a first try at spinning and plying?

Yarn Harlot Warms Minnesota

2007-04-04T21:27:00.000-07:00

... or at least, warms the hearts of Minnesotans. We nearly found two of the three of us ousted before we began, but eventually the snafu was corrected and all three of us were lucky enough to get into the auditorium to listen to the Yarn Harlot hold forth on subjects knitterly. A grand time was had by all (including the wonderful social butterfly known as Chris, who we all-too-briefly got to meet in person). Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is perhaps even a better speaker than she is a knitter, and that's saying quite a bit.

Even the Teenaged Thug, who is not a knitter and who was forced to stand in line for his poor decrepit mother, enjoyed himself hugely. He also very kindly and enthusiastically insisted on bringing The Afghan to show off. I thought it sufficient that he showed that much interest in knitting, but Ms. Pearl-McPhee was having none of his excuses and sternly instructed him to learn to wield smaller pointy sticks than his epee. But she was also kind enough to take a picture of us holding up said Afghan - and I got to hold THE TRAVELING SOCK!!!

(we are not worthy...)

I must give mention here of The Yarnery, which provided a wonderful service to the knitting community by organizing and hosting the event. As if the Yarn Harlot were not enough, we were also lavished with knitting bags and door prizes and chocolates.
Life is good!

Define Multitasking

2007-03-22T03:15:00.000-07:00

I not only can't multitask anymore, I can't even manage more than one task per day. The ultimate lack of multitasking ability...

I can work. Or I can blog. Or I can read blogs. Or I can manage my kid's complex schedule and transportation needs (remember that we homeschool, so this does not allow me several hours of non-kid time in which to organize 'extra-curricular activities - depending on how you look at it, either everything is extra-curricular, or everything is curricular). Or I can knit/crochet. Or I can run errands/do chores.

But I seem to be only able to manage one of those activities in a day; if I try to do several things, nothing gets done. At least not to my satisfaction.

It's not for lack of intention, will, or organization. I have lists, I have calendars, I have a teen on hand who I ask to remind me to do things (the last is a particularly ineffective and potentially dangerous organizational tool - don't try this at home). Still, I get to the end of the day and see that I have only managed to do one thing effectively. I have worked, or read blogs, or managed the kid's education/schedule, or run errands, or knit (notice I didn't mention that I have blogged, since this seems a rarity lately)... but I have not done more than one of these things (except perhaps glancingly, generally with much profanity involved).

When did this happen? My brain used to be bigger. Clearly bits of it have decided to emigrate (where to? what are they doing? are they living incognito, perhaps taking those vacations I never had the budget or time to take? have they established lives and even businesses of their own, having grown impatient with my distracted, scattered ways? did they take the spoons with them?)

How do you people get so much done?

Darth Grubby Strikes Back

2007-02-10T05:43:00.000-08:00

I just channeled my teenaged son.

Even though he currently lays innocently sleeping in his bed (well, perhaps not innocently, but I've heard enough about them to know that I don't want to peek into his dreams, so let's say 'innocent until proven guilty', shall we?), his pernicious influence still percolates subtly throughout the house, perhaps throughout the known universe.

I know this because I just started up the water in the tub in the (probably vain) hope that it would eventually warm up to the point where my scalp won't actually freeze solid on contact, and as I turned on the spigot I had the clear thought:

"AGAIN??! But I just washed my hair three days ago..."

(Hey, I've had the flu, give me a break)

That clearly wasn't MY thought running through my head. As my son will no doubt be happy to tell anyone foolish enough to ask, as recently as Thursday I was a member of the Nagging Mother's Hygiene Police in good enough standing to feel compelled to yell orders from my death bed regarding sufficient Shampoo Rinsage and the proper use of a Loofah Mitt.

There's too much testosterone around here. Clearly The Cat isn't a sufficiently balancing female influence. Perhaps we shouldn't have had her spayed?

I need a wife.

On Being the Ping Pong Ball

2007-02-09T22:12:00.000-08:00

I have a flu. Or maybe an inner ear infection. I don't know, and I don't care. Whatever it is, I hate it with a red hot passion that *should* be heating the house to a much warmer temperature than it currently seems to be enjoying.

It's bad enough that I feel exhausted and dizzy and nauseous (and probably unrelatedly, I also have killer cramps). As insult added to my injury, I am an object of ridicule because my lack of balance combined with complete inability to get up the energy to open my eyes is causing me to occasionally careen around the room like a deranged ping-pong ball, bouncing off walls and furniture at random. Except that I emit amusing grunts and expletives in exchange for the charming 'poink' noise that your normal, sane ping-pong ball makes when it ~~breaks its shins~~ lightly bounces against something.

All I want to do is get from a prone position on the couch to a prone position in my bed. Is that so much to ask?

Evidently it is. I suspect The Cat of moving furniture whenever I run (desperately) for the bathroom. I suppose she can't help it, being a Cat and all, but I still intend to wreak my revenge by covering the ottoman and the area in front of the heating vent with crumpled tin foil.

As soon as I can make it through the kitchen door without breaking my neck.

Maybe next week.

Admit It...

2007-02-03T05:55:00.000-08:00

A week without me is like a week without sunshine, isn't it?

Well, actually, a week *with* me is like a week without sunshine, too. Or at least, to be more accurate, a week without warmth - because that's what we're in for, here in MN. Day after day of significantly below zero weather, with a nice refreshing Arctic wind to liven things up.

I love Minnesota, I really do. I have to keep reminding myself of that...

The Silver Lining is that I am REALLY appreciating my wool sock collection now - and so are the boys. We personally have rugless hardwood floors under our feet, and without our nice wool socks we would be a LOT colder than we are right now.

The boys are also appreciating their handknit mile long wrap-it-four-times-around-your-head scarves.

See, I knew that silly knitting addiction would come in handy sooner or later!

I'll Take Mine Straight, Thanks....

2007-01-27T06:08:00.000-08:00

I know it wasn't Nice to say what he said, and I'm not at all interested in defending the original statement. But doesn't it bother anyone else that everything that followed Isaiah Washington's unfortunate name-slinging episode has such an Orwellian reek to it? Now he's packed himself off (running from the Media Hounds like... oooh, I suppose a reference to "Uncle Tom's Cabin" would be troublesome here...) for some nice ReEducation. He *assaulted* a co-worker, but that only caused a minor gossip-oriented reaction, no big deal, not truly interesting - on the other hand, there's nothing like a little UnPC rhetoric to get the media slavering and the entire country up in arms.

As a country, we really need to Get A Life...

Gentle Fall of Snow

2007-01-25T07:22:00.000-08:00

Such a beautiful snowfall in the morning, the sort that they try to imitate in films, the slow and gentle fall of snow that resembles the fall of flakes in a particularly good snow globe. Even better, over the hour or so that it was falling the flakes changed shape and size, so that sometimes it was little flakes that flipped end over end, like little helicopter seeds, and sometimes it was the big fluffy 'chicken feather' snow that gathers so gorgeously and brilliantly frosts each tree limb, making the winter lace that inspires the artist in everyone.

Unfortunately, it's supposed to sleet today and then hard freeze tomorrow. From Currier & Ives to statewide Ice Rink, all in one weekend. Yup, it's Minnesota, all right...

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The Kid came home a little blue yesterday, having finished the last of his lessons with his current voice coach, the wonderful Vicky Mountain. Next week, at her recommendation, he will begin lessons with a new coach - a gentleman who has an impressive classical background, and who is the music director for the Prelude singer/performer program at MacPhail. He seems a decent sort, and is no doubt very talented... but this is Bren's 3rd vocal coach in about a year, and it's hard to keep saying goodbye to people that he has grown attached to, especially when his experience in the past is that when he falls into a teacher/student mismatch the results are often disastrous.

I'd be lying if I didn't admit to a few nervous wonderings, myself. Certainly the new coach is a more rigorous sort than Bren's previous coaches, and no doubt less nurturing and flexible in his approach - not necessarily a bad thing at this point in Bren's 'career'. There are a few essential fundamentals that he never really got trained on adequately (breathing, for instance) that need to be addressed, but which the kid probably wouldn't bother with if he isn't forced to do so. My hope is that he has matured enough and gained enough confidence in the past few years that he'll be able to tolerate a certain degree of discipline and personality mismatch from an authority figure.

We'll see - but in the meantime, I sympathize with his reluctance to part with a teacher who has been both nurturing and effective. His concurrent mid-year entrance into a demanding program full of kids who have already bonded as a group is causing us perhaps even more excitement and trepidation. There will be social challenges, as well as skill areas where he will be far behind the other kids (movement and harmonization, for instance). There will also be opportunities, both social and academic, that he wouldn't have otherwise. Who knows what the result will be? The new year is shaping up to be an adventure!

As Bees...

2007-01-20T19:56:00.000-08:00

Well, today we went to see "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" at Upstage! Musical Theater Workshop. Upstage! is a wonderful program that provides singing, movement and acting training for kids of all ages, and gives them an opportunity to work in a musical theater production with professional adult actors. I recommend it highly.

On the Musical Theater front, Bren is now in the Prelude singer/performer program at MacPhail. We're very excited - last weekend we saw a performance of the program members, and it was very professional and impressive. And the Shakespearean Youth Theater is starting rehearsals of "Much Ado About Nothing", which will be showing the first weekend of March.

So we're busy, busy, busy - but it's a good kind of busy, and that's a good thing!

Nearly Four Months

2007-01-17T05:26:00.000-08:00

Yes, it HAS been nearly four months since I posted here.

I don't have any good excuses. I have reasons for my neglect, but in spite of being true, they are largely unconvincing. For what it's worth:

1. Let's start with the most stupid - but still truthful - reason I haven't blogged in four months.

I posted something that was extremely well intentioned, but it turned out to be something with unintended and potentially unpleasant consequences if seen by the wrong parties. I got an unexpectedly unpleasant dressing down for my trouble, and then spent a completely unreasonable number of hours and days trying to get the post in question deleted from my blog and from Google (for some reason when certain key words were entered in a search my little post was the first listing, right at the top of page 1). Google actually was not the problem - once I got the right info (thanks, Sis!), Google was very cooperative. Blogger, on the other hand, chose the (automated) position of "Go away and don't bother us," as their first, last and middle position.

So a good amount of my refusal to blog for four months was due to a passive aggressive response to that experience.

I never said I was reasonable.

2. I've been experiencing Health Issues. I don't want to get into that in detail, but I haven't had a lot of energy. So I've been parsing out my energy expenditures more conservatively, and blogging comes under "Non-Essential".

3. I've been busier lately with actual (paying) work. I need actual (paying) work right now. I need it a lot. When Push comes to Shove - as it so often does - actual (paying) work pwns blogging.

4. I've been busy doing things with The Kid. The Kid is getting busier and busier, and that means I have been getting busier and busier. This has involved:

a) A couple plays (me: transportation, attendence, volunteer work kid: performance)

b) Several recitals (me: attendence kid: performance)

c) A big charity/media event at the Mall of America that took entire weeks out of our lives (organizing, copying, shopping, transporting, marketing, training, meetings, etc). This kept us very busy, and caused us all a lot of anxiety for a while, but was a tremendously rewarding experience in the end. More about this can be found at The Kid's blog.

d) Transportation to and from + attendence at various classes (The Kid is Captain of his fencing team this year, how about that!), and

e) Organizing the homeschool front for a kid who is fast approaching his SAT's and his decisions about college. Urgh.

5. The holidays were in there somewhere. Lots of holiday activities and arrangements, because my family Does The Holidays.

6. My lovely Sis came from New Zealand to visit for nearly a week. I am SO glad she did, it was wonderful - but not conducive to spending time elsewise. Not that I cared. Sis pwns blogging.

7. My wonderful friend Susan From New York City came to visit for the main part of the holiday season. I LOVE it when Susan comes to visit, and as always, it was wonderful - but not always conducive to spending time elsewise. Not that I cared. Susan pwns blogging.

8. Somewhere in there I managed to spend some time harassing my husband and kid. I'm doing it right now, too - have you noticed my use of the term 'pwn'? The kid HATES that. I only use it so that I can watch him roll his eyes and huff and squirm (do you think that counts as 'physical education'?)

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Don't ask me why, with all these things going on, I couldn't think of anything to write about.

Did I mention that I'm not reasonable?

Boob Tube Report: Rockstar Supernova

2006-09-20T03:29:00.000-07:00

First of all, let me say that once again I was disappointed but not surprised at the outcome of the RockStar competition.

First of all, if it were a normal audition process and the group was judging based on talent alone, there would not even be a question; Dilana would have gotten the job, and gotten it quickly. She wouldn't have had the opportunity or pressure to self-destruct in the manner we were (lucky us) treated to in the last few weeks. She would have had time - and hopefully training and experience - to learn how to handle the press better.

But there were two problems.

One is that in this case she DID have the pressure and opportunity to implode, and did so. That demonstrably alienated some of her fan base, and possibly gave the then-called Supernova gents a bit of a pause. It sounds as though Gilby stuck by Dilana as a choice, and that Dave Navarro would have chosen her as well. I'm not surprised - they seemed to me the most musically focused and emotionally grounded of the judges.

The other problem, and perhaps the most significant one, is the Peter Pan factor. I don't know how to get past that, except by starting with a band that already has female members.

The fact is that rock is one area where boys are allowed to stay boys for an unnatural period of time, and when a group of Neverlanders have been together for a while it's hard for them to believe that a female isn't going to Harsh their Mellow. No matter how Rockin' a Babe their particular Wendy might be, no matter how much they might love and appreciate her finer qualities, when push comes to shove the Lost Boys just can't help but suspect that sooner or later she's going to get in the way of their Groove.

The Peter Pan factor was particularly clear last year with the elimination of Suzie and even more with the earlier elimination of Jordis (and with their choice of J.D., who had attitude to spare but couldn't carry a tune in a bucket).

The issue was handled more subtly by this more sophisticated and experienced (should we say 'senior'?) group. But the open expression of the question, 'Can a woman front a rock band?' was telling in a competition in which the woman in question was so significantly advanced in terms of skill and performance when compared to the other contestants.

The real question isn't whether a woman could front a rock band. The real question is whether a group of Guys can handle having a woman in a position of equal authority hanging around when they are doing Guy Stuff.

If they weren't going to pick a Wendy, the guys did well enough in choosing Lukas. He's a powerful performer, an interesting and endearing and freaky little troll, and seems like a sweet guy. I really liked Lukas, myself, and thought his original was far and away the best of the songs offered by the finalists.

But as much as I enjoyed Lukas' performances in sets of one or two, he doesn't have a great deal of versatility. I suspect that listening to him for an entire album (much less a two-hour concert) would get on my nerves pretty quickly - or perhaps worse, bore me.

Dilana should have been the clear choice. It's too bad that two of the Neverlanders weren't able to overcome their fear of Growing Up.

Tommy Lee's statement couldn't have been more appropriate:

"Lukas, you're our Boy."

Life, Right?

2006-09-18T16:46:00.000-07:00

For a week it was work crisis with attending serious Carpal Tunnel action, then it was time for a rest (phew!) but with a health crisis compounded by a nasty cold/flu. And tomorrow I'll be back to work again.

So what else has been going on?

Well, Mom had her 50 year high school reunion - was, in fact, on the Reunion Committee, so we were all grateful when it went without any major glitches. A good time was had by all, and mom had a ton of fun catching up with the gals from her Catholic girl's school.

My grandmother is hanging in there, and we're still very, very happy with her nursing home. We were so lucky to have found it right when we did.

My sister is hanging in there as well, and in fact spent a week at a sort of Arts & Crafts camp at a lake up north recently, and came back refreshed and inspired. Which is wonderful, because one of her best friends lost a sibling just a couple days before she left, and she was very distressed about it. She's very attached to her friends, and it pains her to see them suffer when there is little she can do to help. It was good for her to get her mind on other things.

The Pirate is doing well, and ecstatic to be back in the full swing of the Football Season. His Vikes have a good team this year, and a new coach, and he is full of hope. Keep your fingers crossed for him!

The Vampire is signed up for voice lessons at MacPhail, classes & performance of Much Ado About Nothing with the Shakespeare Youth Theater, beginning to teach himself to play the guitar, trying to figure out how to promote Pantene's Beautiful Lengths program, thinking about starting up fencing classes again, and is trying to figure out how to fit regular study and hopefully a job into all that. Life is tough, so much opportunity...

The Cat is having problems with matting, which has improved slightly with the expensive new 'Allergy' food we're feeding her, but still a major issue.

It's gotten chilly here in MN... and a mouse or three moved into the house this week. The Cat is not the least bit interested. Yesterday I could clearly hear a little monster chewing on something (our expensive couch, for instance?) from across the room, and the cat couldn't even be bothered to turn her head towards the sound. She used to be a great hunter, but the Pirate accidently taught her not to pay attention to mice a few years back (he yelled at her and pushed her off the counter and only found out later that there had been a mouse in the drawer that she was hovering over - unfortunately she's a VERY quick learner, and she didn't draw the correct conclusion from that particular lesson).

Now we're in for it. The cat kept pests at bay well enough during the past couple years, because even though she didn't touch them she would sit close and stare at them intensely enough to scare them off. But now she can't be bothered to do even that...

I'm busily knitting socks and washcloths for the upcoming holidays.

And I kind of hate to admit it, but I'm sort of looking forward to the Television Season starting up again. A new PBS season of Nova and Frontline and Mystery! and Masterpiece Theater and perhaps even Secrets of the Dead. A new season of Gray's Anatomy, Gilmore Girls, Lost, Boston Legal, and (of course) American Idol. And a couple new shows that might be of interest. Studio 60, perhaps... and exactly how are they going to explain how Jericho managed to linger when the towns on all sides got... Blown away? Radioactively poisoned? Carted away by Men in Black?

Some of these shows we'll wait to see until the season comes out on DVD, but some we'll watch fairly religiously. I'll let you know what we think.

Well, I'd better wrap it up. The kid has tech/dress rehearsals every day for the next two weeks, and tonight he somehow lucked out and is going to be able to come home early - he wants to have dinner with us, and should be home by 8:00 with his dad and a chicken. Hopefully the chicken will be the only one that's inert!

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Adventures In Sitting, Mostly

2006-09-09T06:07:00.000-07:00

WARNING: This is a long and detailed report of my impressions of Audition Day for American Idol. If you aren't interested (I mean really, really interested), don't read it. If you want a shorter version, read the Vampire's version on his blog.

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Well, we are finally done with our American Idol adventure. For this year, at least.

The worst damage was to:

1. Our finances. Prepping for a big audition like this is expensive if the singer needs sheet music, a tuner/metronome, clothes that fit and don't have holes or hideous stains, shoes ditto, extra music lessons, etc... plus the Food Issue specific to Target Center. I'll get to that in a moment. Not to mention the money I wasn't making and the employer I was alienating thereby because all the running around kept me away from my keyboard this week, and because of #2.

2. My body. Not only has whatever is wrong with my heel (spur? glass shard embedded in bone? something even nastier?) gotten much, much worse because of all the standing, but I've developed an Ominous Abdominal Pain. If both don't get better soon, I'm going to have to go to Specialists who will do expensive and painful and humiliating Tests on me, at the very least. And I have some combination of a cold and my allergies blowing up on me. Ugh.

3. Sleep Patterns. The Vampire is not used to getting up at 3am, and to have to do so twice in three days is more than his fragile sleep patterns can manage. While I get up at 3am fairly frequently, the list of Things To Do in my head kept me from being able to take full advantage of the two hours of bedtime I had available on those two nights, and also kept me from sleeping more than fitfully for the four or so hours I had available the other nights this week. After yesterday was over I got a 2-hour nap... and then wasn't able to sleep last night. It will take a while to get back into the swing of things.

The Best Benefits were:

1. We learned some good things about how to do this next year, if American Idol comes again. Among other things, it turns out the standing in line at 4am for Registration was not only unnecessary, it wasn't even in our best interests in terms of the auditioning process. Next time we'll mosey in on Thursday at a reasonable time of day and avoid the lines. It means longer waiting to audition, but who cares? You get to *sit* while waiting to audition, among other things. If we do this again in town, it won't be nearly as difficult and exhausting. If we have to go to Chicago or some such, it'll be a different story.

2. The Vampire thought that he'd be really overwhelmed and nervous, and that he'd make a horrible mistake or fall apart during the audition. Instead he did just fine - so that's added confidence in his own ability to cope under pressure, which is a good thing.

3. The Vampire got just a bit more focused with this experience. He didn't work as hard as he could have, but he did work harder than he'd ever done before over a longish term, and he saw the benefits of doing so. He also learned more about what he would be up against when he starts auditioning for things in the Real (Adult) World - which means that he's a bit more realistic about the future, and what he needs to do to prepare for it. He's not entirely There yet, but it was a big step.

4. The Vampire had a great time, and really enjoyed the experience a lot. Given the sacrifices involved, I'm very happy about that - with the lack of sleep and the pressures, he could have processed this as a negative experience, but instead he is cheerfully planning for next year.

That said, here's the rundown on the Audition Day:

I decided after our experience at Registration that it wasn't important for us to get there early, as long as we were there in time to get in line... I wanted the kid to get as much sleep as he could.

I got up at 3am, after making preparations until 1am. I don't think I slept much between those hours, either... I got up half an hour before the alarm went off. I ironed clothes and packed them (the auditioner theoretically should have an extra change, in case someone spills something on them), gathered together various necessary items. The Pirate got up just after 4:00 and hied himself to Super America to pick up sandwiches and bottles of Evian - both the info sheet that American Idol gave us at registration and the news shows said that we could bring food and water to the auditions, and water is a necessity for people with bladder issues (me) or singing issues (Vampire).

I woke the Vampire up at 4:10 or so, and finished packing while he got ready. We were off by 5:00 and had no traffic problems, got to the Target Center by 5:15 or so.

The line was very wide and long, but slightly more lively than the crowd on Wednesday. We spent the time chatting with friendliest of our neighbors. Oddly enough there was very little singing - more on that later. But the mild weather and the friendly chatter made the experience fun - and this time we brought a camp chair, so the waiting part wasn't physically difficult.

The line started moving right at 6am, and went in fairly reasonable fits and starts, so we were in the doors and to our seats by 6:30 or so.

The only unpleasant part of this process was that in disregard of the instruction sheets and the news reports, Target Center decided to search bags and confiscate all food and water at the inner entrances. Which meant that our $20 worth of water and sandwiches were thrown away, and that later the Vampire and then I had to stand for an hour or so in an obscenely slow line in order to pay nearly $20 for two small hot dogs and two small bottles of water. In effect we paid $40 for two small hot dogs and two small bottles of water.

There are no drinking fountains at the Target Center. Obviously it is their policy to force people to buy their outrageously overpriced concessions or accept bodily damage as a consequence of dehydration and blood sugar deficit. The concessions people are fully aware of their monopoly on the attendees' bodily wellbeing, so they feel no pressure to actually perform; snails move more quickly and certainly more efficiently. They probably smile more, too.

I can understand such a policy for a concert or a basketball game, where the participants are there for a couple hours and would take no actual harm from refraining from drinking or eating if they couldn't afford the obscenely priced salt-laden junk food they offer at their poorly staffed concession areas. But for an event that lasts from 6am until some point in the late afternoon or evening, it's a rotten thing to do - especially if you knowingly allow it to be advertised otherwise by both your sponsor and the media. It was Robbery, pure and simple.

And definitely a Target Center issue, rather than an American Idol issue. I must say that the AI staff was uniformly pleasant, well-informed, extremely efficient and well run. Clearly they have Audition Day down to a science, as well as an art.

The first thing they did after we starting filling up the auditorium was teach everyone the Group Song that they always televise on the audition phase of the show. In our case, because we are the Home Town of His Royal Purple Badness, we sang "1999". In three part harmony.

It was a lot of fun.

After that there was some waiting, and then they hauled out Ryan Seacrest, who briefly spoke to the crowds, did his little speeches in front of the camera, did an (inaudible) interview with someone from Entertainment Tonight, and left. During this time the producers led the crowd in a couple staged cheers and shouts, including (at Seacrest's insistence) a 'Boo' at the mention of Simon Cowell. This sat ill with the Vampire and I, since we like Simon and don't think much of Seacrest (to say the least).

Ah, well. As the kid says, it's fun to be involved with any celebrity event, no matter how little you care for the celebrity himself.

Then we did the singing of "1999" for the cameras. Unfortunately the Vampire had gone to the concessions stand to get water, and missed this entire portion... and I had trouble paying attention to it, because by the time the singing started the Vampire had been gone for over half an hour, and I was getting worried that he'd gotten lost or wasn't being allowed back without his ticket or some such thing. I went out to find him, and eventually found him halfway through the line at the one open concessions stand. It wasn't a long line. It was just very, very... relaxed... behind the counter. I took the kid's place and he hustled back to the stands, but it was too late. He'd missed the televised singing.

After the song we waited while they set up the tables and curtains for the auditioning sections. Then we waited some more while the stands were slowly emptied for the auditions, one portion of one section at a time.

In our entire section of several hundred people, only one woman practiced her intended song while we waited to get in line for the actual audition. Unfortunately she sat directly behind us, and sang the da**ed thing over and over for more the entire time we waited for our section to be let down to the audition line. She was good, and had a pleasant enough voice, but it was an ordeal to be forced to hear the same verse sung exactly the same way over and over and over, right into our ears.

After the first hour or so I wanted to stab her with my knitting needles (yes, OF COURSE I brought my knitting). It was very distracting and annoying, and made it impossible for the people around her to focus on their own internal (silent) processing; that may not be uncommon behavior elsewhere, I don't know, but in Minnesota it's considered very rude.

A few other determined contestants also chose to practice their songs aloud - but they moved out into the hallways to do so, in order to avoid bothering others. I loved them. I wished them well. I cheered internally but enthusiastically when our torturer was eliminated.

In terms of stands and the order of emptying, we were more than halfway down the line - but the Vampire reminds me that the stands in front of us were more sparsely packed for some reason (they were the stands allotted to the people who stood in line early on Wednesday), while the stands behind us were very tightly packed. So the Vampire probably was just short of the middle of the pack when he auditioned. I stayed in the stands (only auditioners were allowed on the field) and kept an eye on all our friendly acquaintances from the two lines we'd been in this week, and on our seatmates.

None of them got through to the second round. And although nearly half of the auditioners had already gone through their paces, and there were supposed to be over 200 second-round auditioners in the end, the judges were clearly hoarding their 'golden tickets' for later, just in case a raft of amazing talents or hidden Nutters showed up. At the time we left no more than perhaps 20 people had been let through. Most of those came from the lower half of the tables, so we kept our fingers crossed that the Vampire would end up at one of those.

Instead he ended up with the table where the producer who led the cheers and song sat, in the upper part of the field. In the entire time I was there, only four people got their 'golden ticket' from that group of tables. One of them was in the Vampire's group of four (they audition four at a time), a very showy and professional Diva type in her upper 20's.

In watching the Vampire's group's progress through the lines compared to the progress of our acquaintances who had been called up before him, it was clear that the judges at his table were not in a good mood, and were cutting people off very quickly; his group got to their table before our acquaintances were halfway through their lines.

There were no introductions, and the judges had no information or I.D. for the contestants, so they did not know how young the Vampire was - most people in line assumed he was in his early twenties, so I suspect the judges thought the same. With that in mind, and the Diva factor, the kid was very happy that he obviously pleased one of the judges (she was smiling and grooving to his song) and that they let him get through nearly three verses before the less enthusiastic judge stopped him. He felt that he'd acquitted himself well.

I did, too.

So all in all, it was a good experience for the kid, and he wants to do it again.

Some extra thoughts:

As is usual in Minnesota, throughout the entire event the crowd was attentive and cooperative. As is also usual in the Twin Cities, the attitude in general was very professional, and the quality of the competition was quite high.

Which I think may be a possible reason why American Idol may not be coming back again next year. They loved the fact that the crowds and lines were polite, cooperative, easy to manage - but seemed frustrated that we were also so staid. There was none of the spontaneous group singing in the lines that evidently typifies the AI experience in other cities, no shouts, no arguing, no fights breaking out.

Minnesota Nice and Professional Work Ethic isn't as warm as Southern Hospitality, and not as entertaining and 'at least I'm better that that' ego-boosting as towns whose civilians have more Bravado (L.A., New York) or more fresh-faced Naivete (Dallas, Seattle). There were very few contestants dressed up in silly costumes or blowing up when they were stopped, very little outrageous grandstanding behavior in the general croud. People treated this more as a professional opportunity than as an opportunity to show off on television - which oddly enough probably makes us less entertaining for the national TV audience. Not enough Freak Show appeal.

Hint: If they do come to Minnesota again, you are almost guaranteed a second round (and probably third) if you dress up like a Loony. They traditionally let through a mix of about 1/2 people who are either dressed in costumes or are truly dreadful in some other way, and 1/2 serious contestants. In Minnesota the ratio of costumed contestants was about 1 per 1,500 this year, at most. If all you want is to get on TV, rather than to compete in the serious rounds, Minnesota is definitely the place to strut your Outrageous Stuff.

On the other hand, there was spontaneous and sincere applause from the audience every time someone got their 'golden ticket', whether it was for talent or for buffoonery. We really are nice. Overall, I was proud of My Town(s); we may not be as colorful as some, but we make for good neighbors and good friends. In the long run, that means a lot.

He Just Hasn't Had His Nap Yet

2006-09-07T09:52:00.000-07:00

Obviously he hasn't had his nap yet, or eaten lunch, and he's a bit out of sorts... but if you are interested, here is the Vampire's Version of yesterday's registration event.

Today we are going to go get his head washed and massaged by a professional, and my guess is that he'll feel more relaxed after that.

These temperamental artistic types...

(or do I mean 'these temperamental teenaged types'?)

Lines of Doom

2006-09-06T21:11:00.000-07:00

The kid will write his own report tomorrow, but I thought I'd tell my own short tale of today's registration for the American Idol auditions.

Keep in mind, this was to register to audition, not the auditions themselves. Auditions are on Friday.

So we got up at 4am. Theoretically (according to the AI website) registration was to start at 6am, and nobody was allowed to camp overnight in line or even line up prior to 6am. So of course people started lining up at midnight.

We got to the Target Center just prior to 6am, and because of a gap that was being maintained for some reason or other at the corner, thought that the line wasn't Too Long, and decided not to lug the camp chairs along. After waving goodbye to the Pirate (who drove us there), we hiked to the end of the line...

... And discovered that it continued around the corner. And around the next corner. And pretty darned close to the next corner.

We stood still, packed like sardines in an amorphous can approximately 8 people wide and thousands long, for the next 4 hours. They didn't register people at 6am, or 7, and I suspect from the lack of movement that they started considerably after 8 (although I couldn't swear to it - they might have spent time trying to loosen up the crowd up front - it was probably pretty bottlenecked by then).

I really regretted that chair, I did.

We started detecting movement on our end of the line at around 9:30, and it took probably a bit less than an hour for us to get to the registration desks. Even very stop-and-go movement was considerably better than standing stock still and trying to avoid accidental inappropriate touches to and from one's neighbors. But by the time we got registered my kidneys and my feet were lodging acute complaints. Acute enough that I was afraid to sit on the sidewalk afterwards while waiting half an hour to be picked up by the Pirate; I knew that if I sat that far down I would never be able to rise again.

There wasn't much singing going on. It was mostly a politely subdued crowd, and the poor woman who was gamely trying to raise a Wave proved unable to get one going for more than a few feet (although we halfheartedly joined in, the Wave seemed to end with us, even when she attempted to slip forward and start one from the other direction).

At the front of the line as we arrived there was a large man singing in a beautifully trained and fabulously carrying voice. Once we settled into our own place in line we saw one woman who had an Idols shirt and Idols patches and an Idols Camp Chair with autographs from various well-known Idols celebs. There was also an emaciated young man who was for a time shoulder-to-shoulder with me, who spent the entire time in line with his hand to his Ear Bud, singing sotto voce with music that only he could hear in a reedy voice (we wondered why he was risking damage to his vocal chords in such a way, given that there were no auditions to be done that day, and that our late position in line made it unlikely that he'd be interviewed by the numerous media folks being courted by the people at the front).

Other than that, the people around us were normal, quiet, Midwestern types. Directly behind us were a young gal and her mom (brought for support and transport help only, as the auditioner was 21 years old - kids under 18 are required to be accompanied by a parent/guardian) who had traveled for more than 20 hours from Michigan in order to audition. The only odd thing about the fresh-faced pair was that they had traveled all that way to audition for a show that they had never once watched. They had just arrived at that moment, and had not realized that they would have to stay for several nights in order to audition. We wrote down instructions for them so that they could get to a reasonably priced motel we know of near the Mall of America.

My kidneys are still complaining, and still are my feet. It's nearly midnight, and the week is looking very very long.

I'm off to bed!

Where Does the Carpal Tunnel Go?

2006-08-26T05:07:00.000-07:00

Ooh. Weird! Where did that week go?

I didn't even get any significant knitting done - about two inches of sock, maybe (although I got a lot of decreasing done on the toe). And that's it. No wonder I'm cranky and out of sorts!

On the other hand, other than working on my case of carpal tunnel, I've given myself over entirely to the Vampire's (temporary) career. We work on his song. We go to his lessons and work on his song. We grocery shop and eat (we still have to keep body and soul together, of course... think how bad his singing would be without the soul!) and I type, and occasionally I go to bed and get a bit of sleep (not often enough). We talk to publicists and we talk to people about hair. And then we work on the singing a bit more.

Occasionally we do other stuff. Academics, occasionally. At other times we do something crazy and unexpected. Yesterday we locked ourselves out of the car at the gas station, and had to wait until the Vampire could walk home and burglarize our house for the spare set of keys.

Good times...

In the meantime, you can always read the Vampire's blog. He's sneaking up to the computer on the rare occasion that I stumble away from the keyboard in order to have a nice cry and ice my wrists.

Enjoy!

Which Life Would You Choose?

2006-08-21T04:20:00.000-07:00

Today's plans:

Me - type, cook, type, chauffeur, wait (knit?), chauffeur, cook & eat, type, eat, chauffeur, type

Pirate - cook & eat, bus, work, lunch, work, bike, grocery shop, chauffeur, cook & eat

Vampire - eat, improv auditions, eat, singing practice, eat, nap, eat, play rehearsal

The Cat - nap, eat, nap, demand some petting, nap

Get A Life... Take Mine, For Instance

2006-08-17T16:29:00.000-07:00

I think I'm permanently welded to my 'office chair' now. I'm afraid to get up - the chair might come with me, riding along on my butt like some black leather leech out of "African Queen". And Katherine Hepburn isn't here to help me.

It feels like I've been here forever. It was okay when it was fishing lodge stories, I can handle that. But now it's transcript after transcript of lawyers - and worse, legal publication salesmen - blathering on and on about which is more accessible and useful: print or electronic information? Even more fascinating are the matters of storage and updating and access and blahblahblah until I want to decapitate myself with a legal pad. Or smash my head in with Black's Law Dictionary.

What's worse, the Vampire is all excited, because HIS career is doing just dandy, thank you. It's not currently a paid career - but it's loads of fun for him, and good experience for the portfolio. So we're heading into territory where conversations in our house will go as follows:

Me: Gawd, I'm exhausted. I just typed "hempeerdfplwx." I think my hands are going to fall off. I wish they would...

V: Want to do something different? I need a ride to the radio station, they want an interview.

Me: I would, but I can't see, everything's blurry. What are those blinky lights, floating around? I need new eyes, these ones suck.

V: Could you get off the internet? I need to call my publicist.

Me: Sure. I'll go take a nap. I'll trade it in for the hour of sleep I was planning to get tonight. Which way is my bedroom? I can't remember...

V: I need to go to the hair salon, too. They're going to televise me getting my hair cut.

Me: Shut up.

I'd tell you more about it, but I've got to go listen to this paralegal. She has something to tell me about filing treatise updates.

Plea for Help

2006-08-15T17:01:00.000-07:00

Please, please, PLEASE do us a huge favor, and tell everyone who might be the least bit interested that you know someone who is auditioning for American Idol - and send them/give them the address for the Vampire's blog ( http://amidle.blogspot.com/ ). He is working so hard on this, and it would give him a huge boost to know he has support behind him other than his predictably doting mum.

All comments and visits appreciated, no matter how small.

Thank you for your time and attention. We now return you to your regular programming.

More Confessions

2006-08-15T16:05:00.000-07:00

~ I have no idea how long it's been since we took our ironing board down. It is starting to look like a permanent fixture between the table and the hutch. The guys have taken to using it as a sideboard for dishes/pots that are hot. This is not a classy thing.

~ The Vampire and I had an argument the other day about when the latest is that we'd ever taken down the Christmas Tree. This is because we had noticed that I have a 'picture hat' sitting upside down on the buffet, decoratively filled with tree ornaments. Because, you know, taking them up to the attic would have been too cold last February. And then it was too hot to take them up in June. I am ignoring the existance of May.

~ We haven't gone to a movie in three weeks, and we went through a gap of more than a month before that. The Vampire has been having spells of dizziness the past few days - I think it's withdrawal symptoms, due to not having yet seen Talladega Nights (not that we would have gone to that in any case), Miami Vice, Descent, Step Up, World Trade Center (we normally would have seen at least two of these), and to our not being likely to see Accepted, Snakes On A Plane, or the Illusionist (the last being the only one his boring parents would have normally taken him to, if they weren't tied to their desks and his lesson/practice schedule).

~ I should be working right now. I'm procrastinating. I live on the Edge.

~ We didn't start watching Boston Legal until now. Now we are watching it on dvd, and we are hooked. The Pirate is starting to get turned on if I sneak up behind him and whisper "Denny Crane!" in his ear.

~ I got some putative cat treats a while back that are freeze-dried shrimp dusted with catnip. The Cat can't be bothered. But they are shrimp, so I can't just throw them away. I am trying to think of a clever Craft Item that I could make with them. Perhaps I should glue them artistically on a cleaned tuna can, glue some fabric inside and call it an Earring Box? Would anyone buy it at a rummage sale?

~ I am a sock knitter in a house full of men who either lose or destroy socks within days of receiving them. This is *definitely* a case of casting pearls before swine (sorry, Pirate... that's not a reflection on your personality, which is lovely). I gave a pair to my dearest friend... and she won't wear them because she doesn't want to damage them. Futility, thy name is Me.

~ But I keep making them, anyway. Because, you know, they are socks.

~ I made up a Pad Thai recipe. It's good, and we eat way too much of it when we can. Does that mean that it's actually Pad Eileen?

Confession

2006-08-12T10:46:00.000-07:00

Okay, how sad is this?

All morning long I've occasionally been distracted by a scritching sound, which suspiciously resembles the sound the Vampire's pet rats used to make when they were shredding paper (we used to seal treats in an envelope and watch them chew their way through - our pleasures are simple ones). This has happened - oh, perhaps 30 times so far today. And every single time I've looked up, this sound has turned out to be a piece of gift-wrapping paper that is sitting on a nearby table, which is being blown about by the fan and making the scritching noise as it hits its edges together upon folding in on itself.

The noise is very irritating, as is the interruption when I forget (again) what is making that noise and look up from my catch-up blog reading.

Yet it hasn't inspired me to travel the four or so feet necessary to take care of the problem by either weighting the stupid thing down or (and here's a really clever idea) putting the damned thing away where it belongs.

I mean, I could literally roll over there on my office chair with no effort whatsoever, seeing as we have hardwood floors, and stick something on it. The binoculars, for instance, which for some unknown reason are sitting on the table right next to the wrapping paper.

Here's the sad part: I'd rather stay here and write about it than get up the energy to roll a few feet - let alone get on my feet and take care of the issue once and for all. I am feeling that lazy.

What's more, I'm going to go back to reading my favorite blogs. And in the next hour I will look up to see what is scritching AT LEAST six more times...

Rising for Air

2006-08-12T05:30:00.000-07:00

The problem with my work is that it's extremely irregular. So I go for days, or weeks, and once for months, without getting any work... and then suddenly I am inundated, and for days or weeks can't even stop working to get more than a catnap and/or a bite to eat.

I'm in 'feast' mode now, after a long 'famine', so I haven't had time to do Non Survival oriented things - like blogging, sleep, or changing into clothing I would open our door in (I'm definitely the Work In PJ's type - why change into clothes that I'd wreck when I fell into the occasional 1-hour coma?)

This may last a week (it's already been a week, actually). It may last a month. I don't know. The poor Kid hopes it won't last too long - the Idol auditions are in less than a month, and he needs me to help him with practical matters (like getting hold of sheet music, driving him to his distant voice lessons, cooking the occasional meal so that he doesn't expire, etc).

My work also monopolizes the computer, so that it's difficult for other people (the Kid) to get at it if they should need it for research or blogging, themselves. Life is a Vale of Tears.

I offer my apologies to both Readers and Kid for my neglect. Unfortunately, apologies don't mean I will change my evil ways. But I will do the best I can to come up for air once in a while - in hopes that when I do, I will find that you are still there.

The Kid ran in ahead of me in order to get his own Blogging Time in. Read of his adventures here.

American Idle... err, Idol

2006-08-06T21:37:00.000-07:00

The Vampire has set up a blog to chronicle his shot at fame and... well, just fame. Fame of the 'everyone has 15 minutes of fame' sort. We don't even think about the Fortune part of the old cliche - in the same way that we don't think about taking a vacation on the moon, or building a full size model of the Taj Mahal in our back yard. We're a bit silly at times for fun, but we're not really foolish people, for the most part.

In any case, the Vampire has a blog, and he wants me to invite you all to visit him once in a while - it never hurts to have a Fan Base, after all. He's working hard, and the only reward he's likely to get is this audience here. But we think you are a darned nifty reward, audience-wise, so he's already feeling lucky!

We look forward to seeing you there (I'll be right there in the Comment section, of course)!

News From Home

2006-08-02T21:16:00.000-07:00

Yes, it HAS been an entire week since I last wrote. Quite frankly, I wasn't up to blogging - and if you've been anywhere north of the equator this past week, you'll understand why it is significant that WE DON'T HAVE AIR CONDITIONING.

The Vampire and I spent much of our days last week annoying bookstore and fast food restaurant employees by hanging about their establishments for hours at a time. On one hand, we did purchase things (cold beverages, at the least). On the other hand, we rendered ourselves obnoxious by playing interminable games of Scrabble during which we entertained ourselves by lodging indignant accusations of cheating and immediately following them up with propositions of increasingly improbable and/or potentially rude words of questionable origin: "'catacking', it's a fractious gerund. It's what your cat does when you are trying to take a tic off it during the summer and you're wearing shorts and it scrabbles to get away and gives you huge bloody scratches down your leg. Really!"

We spent the evenings back at the sauna that used to be our home, trying to convince ourselves that the air moving outwards from our fans was doing more than just nudging the beads of sweat around in such a way that they'd thoughtfully spell 'Slippery When Wet' for the benefit of the rescue workers when they arrived (too late).

You will be either amazed and impressed, or dubious and concerned, when I report that the Pirate biked from downtown Minneapolis to Frogtown in St. Paul every day last week. He said he LIKED it. I think he just likes feeling justified in standing outside and dumping cold buckets of water from the spigot over himself. He's just a big kid at heart...

The one thing we DID accomplish last week is to work out our study schedule for the coming six weeks. Which, not entirely by coincidence, happens to be the amount of time between last week and the time that the American Idol auditions will be held in the Twin Cities.

The Vampire has decided that even though he has very little chance of even making it to the Randy/Paula/Simon auditions, he is going to audition. He is doing this for a couple reasons:

a) He might make it to the auditions in front of the producers, in which case he might get some valuable criticism (hopefully constructive, but if not it will at least be practice for dealing with hecklers). He wants to be a performer, and performers need to audition - as with anything else, the more you practice the better you get.

b) He will probably meet lots of people while waiting in line, and hopes to convince a few to join him in growing hair for the Beautiful Lengths program. The Vampire is an inch or two from his goal length - he wants to still have some length to his hair after it is cut. This is a wonderful way to do something good for others, and it costs nothing.

I'm very proud of my kid. Wish him luck, please... it's not easy to risk rejection, and certainly not easy to risk being exposed to the sort of ridicule to which some of the Idol contestants are subjected. Even harder to go into the situation knowing that his youth and relative inexperience nearly guarantee early rejection. But as he says, "The only thing that's absolutely sure is that if you don't try, the chances are 100% that you're going to fail to reach your goal."

Really, don't you wish you were related to him?

Where Were We?

2006-07-26T09:19:00.000-07:00

The weather is sabotaging all our efforts to start up the Pirate's new project. We have gotten stuck at the Guage Swatch. It's simply too hot for the poor man to muster sufficient enthusiasm for the idea of having a Nice Warm Hat... not enough, at any rate, to inspire him to overcome his new-found loathing for Purling.

I've tried to explain that purling really isn't too bad once you get the rhythm of it (I hate it myself, when I'm doing seed stitch or ribbing, but don't mind a nice long row of it). But it's so hot and muggy that doing enough knitting with his nice, fuzzy worsted to get into a rhythm is beyond the Pirate's ability to cope. And as our temps start their climb back towards triple digits again, I can't say I blame him.

Does anyone have a pattern for a nice Air Conditioner... in garter stitch?

What We Watch

2006-07-25T11:09:00.000-07:00

The multi-talented Emma Bull authors a most readable blog (Dark Roast) in which she recently expressed an opinion about Showtime's relatively short-lived series Dead Like Me.

Her opinion, summed up, was that it was an excellent show that would appeal greatly to young adults... and which she thought parents would not allow their teens to view, due to graphic language and some sexual content.

I agree with her views on Dead Like Me. We watched each of the seasons as they came out in dvd. We watched it with the Vampire, who was a huge fan from the age of 14 on.

And why not? The writing was sharp, the characters interesting, and it followed a recipe that the best of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer seasons had established: the language and tone were cynical enough to appeal to the younger set, yet the core messages were all about hope, responsibility, love and the self-sacrifice it often demands. In fact, Dead Like Me follows the heroine through her transition from a young adult with a particularly tough case of cynicism through to the final, tender episode in which she expresses fully her hard-won understanding and appreciation of how precious life is because of its flawed and transitory nature.

Shows like Buffy and Dead Like Me are, in fact, about growing up - the very process that teenagers are going through, whether they wish to do so or not. Teens see and appreciate that these shows are holding up a mirror to their lives, and finding the view a bit messy, but interesting and exciting and yes, lovable.

Reasonably alert parents understand that cynicism is the refuge of frustrated idealism, and that young adults are the ultimate idealists. A veneer of ennui and fashionable social rebellion comes with the territory, but by and large that is protective coloring, a middle- and high-school survival mechanism that sloughs off like a snake's skin when they graduate from that hyper-cliqued environment.

Our society spends too much time concentrating on trying to control that predictable and transitory veneer, and too little time paying attention to the inner idealist. We do a disservice to our kids when we keep them from seeing shows like Dead Like Me, but encourage (or at least allow) them to deaden and degrade their minds and spirits on stuff like Fear Factor, Unanimous, and Windfall.

When deciding which books/shows/films/games are going to get the parental blessing, I try to remember to value a package by its contents, rather than its wrapping - and to trust that I've taught my child to do the same.

Certainly it wouldn't be a bad idea for us to judge people that way...

Me And My Shadow #1

2006-07-24T04:13:00.000-07:00

There were 15 months when I was myself, but I don't remember them. I have a couple little wisps here and there - the sound of my parents' voices reading to me; my mother's soft hair; the moments after the ostrich at the zoo bit me and my father swung me up on his shoulders, praising his 'brave girl' (I remember struggling to control my face, desperately wanting to meet his expectations, to please him). But that's all - I don't remember me, me alone.

Of course, at the time I didn't know that those 15 months were all I would ever have. I was busy storing up little bits of understanding of the world - I wasn't old enough to have begun storing up understanding of myself, of my family, of people. That sort of understanding takes a lifetime to achieve, or more, and I had hardly begun back then. There were those 15 months. And then there was After.

I don't remember my sister as a baby, either. Not even wisps. My memory produces her the way magicians produce their doves - not there at all, then Poof! Another body laying under the table or leaning against mine on the couch. Someone else listening to the sound of books being read aloud by my parents, listening to the Disney-ized versions of Bambi and Pinocchio playing on the reel-to-reel tape player. Someone else using my toys, someone else digging in the yard, someone else in the wading pool, someone else in the room always, following me everywhere.

For 15 months there was me. Then there was me and my shadow...

Teen Taxonomy

2006-07-21T08:40:00.000-07:00

(The following was written primarily by the Vampire, with a few pointers from Schooled friends and editing by his proud mum. It is intended to reflect the local teen species only, and as both local and exotic species may evolve and/or mutate spontaneously, this should not be taken as the penultimate study on the subject.)

Teens In the Wild
(A Social Study of Teen Social Groupings and Associated Behavior)

Geek

Geeks are considered social outcasts by most non-geeks. Geeks themselves, however, find this concept laughable. Far from being alone and friendless, geeks organize themselves in close-knit friends. These groups are often found sitting around tables, sharing food and participating in complex rituals involving role-playing, trading card games, and arguing out the merits of the philosophies espoused in Firefly vs. those in Star Trek. When alone, geeks often play video/computer games with skill unmatched by any other group.

Markers: Long hair, T-shirts bearing lengthy prose, ‘Gamer’s Slouch’
Favorite Quote: Geeks can quote from anything, and frequently do. At great length.
Jobs: Game Stores, Video Stores, Book Stores, Convention Hucksters
Heroes: Wil Wheaton, Joss Whedon, J.R.R. Tolkien
Music: Anything except Rap
Stores: GameStop, Borders, Wizards of the Coast

Nerd

First Rule of Nerds: Never confuse them with Geeks. Call a nerd a geek, and you will wake up with your credit rating slashed.

The quickest way to tell if someone is a nerd or a geek is to confront them with an attractive person of the opposite sex. A nerd will turn into a stammering pile of Jell-O. A geek will mysteriously end up with a date for the weekend.

Nerds are basically walking brains with no fashion or social understanding. These kids are brilliant hackers, captains of their math and science teams, and holders of vast stores of memorized fact lists.

Markers: Hygiene issues, solitary habits, lack of matching socks
Favorite Quote: “Define Your Terms”
Jobs: Hacking… eventually, hiring other hackers
Heroes: Bill Gates, Albert Einstein, Marshall from ‘Alias’
Music: Anything with complex patterns
Stores: Radio Shack, Ax Man, Circuit City

Emo

With dyed black hair (or in some cases, bald heads) and faces that look like they would crack if they smiled, emos could make a basset hound look cheerful. Any attempt at communication will be met with a withering glare that could curdle milk. Don’t even try to cheer them up, as they will find this act highly insulting. Emo fashion primarily consists of ‘two sizes too small’. The emo color palette is varied – it includes gunmetal gray, silver gray, slate gray, charcoal gray, lead gray, iron gray, blackish gray and (when they get really crazy) taupe. Emos think that terminal illness is Romantic.

Approach with caution.

Markers: Pale, quiet, frequently near tears… or possible psychosis.
Favorite Quote: “You’ll be sorry when I’m dead,” “I didn’t ask to be born”
Jobs: Dead End, particularly retail
Heroes: Edgar Allan Poe, Romeo & Juliet
Music: Evanescence, Rites of Spring (anything emotional, especially Punk)
Stores: Hot Topic, Goodwill, theatrical makeup outlets

Goth

Don’t let the monochromatic color scheme and heavy makeup fool you… Goths are nothing like Emos. While Emos would like to disappear, Goths force you to look at them by wearing flamboyant (black) clothing, dramatic makeup and hair, and enough metal ornamentation to set off detectors in the next county. While somewhat frightening at first glance, Goths are surprisingly innocuous and friendly once you get to know them. Preps and Goths are natural enemies.

Markers: Black clothing and hair, white skin, a tendency to lurk dramatically, jingle when they walk
Favorite Quote: “Leave me alone”
Jobs: Night Clubs, coffee bars, cafes
Heroes: the Vampire Lestat, Lenore/Roman Dirge, Tim Burton
Music: Bauhaus, Love & Rockets
Stores: Hot Topic, Claire’s, Theatrical costume and set auctions

Punk

Punks and their iPods are inseparable, and at times the iPods are more noticeable. Punks move in time to the music, slamming their heads all the way. These kids are the real Rebels Without a Cause, dressing so outrageously that they make Goths look merely drab. At night punks are usually found in nightclubs, slam dancing… yet somehow they manage not to fatally impale each other with their 3-foot-long spiked hair. Any skin or body part not covered by hair or makeup will be heavily tattooed and/or pierced.

Markers: These people are loud, in both the auditory and the fashion sense
Favorite Quote: (random humming, occasional air drum/air guitar)
Jobs: Tattoo Artist, Body Piercing Specialist, Garage Band Member, Roadie
Heroes: Any garage band that is Big but not Too Big
Music: Green Day, Flogging Molly
Stores: Hot Topic, Great Clips. Saint Sabrina's Parlor In Purgatory

Prep

Preps are often rich, spoiled, arrogant - and very popular. Preps have highly sensitive social antennae, and are often the most influential forces in any school. Not only do they wear and embody the latest fashions, they often control them. Preps are attracted to positions of power in the student body: student council, yearbook committee, prom committee, etc. They are usually the nucleus in a surrounding cloud of hangers-on; cliques are the natural habitat of Preps, and they rule them with an iron… attitude. Prolonged exposure to Prep Society often leaves the sufferer with a debilitating inferiority complex.

Markers: Wears the latest fashion. Surrounded by cringing toadies.
Favorite Quote: “What are you wearing?” (inflection is everything)
Jobs: Trendy Retailers Everywhere
Heroes: Paris Hilton. That’s it.
Music: American Idols, the Top 20 pop songs
Stores: American Eagle, Forever 21, designer outlets, Mall of America

Jock

The only thing that can control a prep is a jock. Primarily male, the jocks are the big, strong, athletic masters of sports… and of their personal universe. While not always as dumb as the cliché would have it, their GPA will never be as high a priority as their ERA. Handsome and sometimes charming, their heightened testosterone levels can lead to trouble for Beta Males and the more suggestible sort of female. Physically and socially, these guys are all about pecking order – geeks and nerds need not apply, just simply get to the end of the line.

Markers: Sports/letter jackets in school colors with double-digit numbers, trendy-but-short haircuts, known by name at the local gym
Favorite Quote: “I won that”
Jobs: Flexible, so as to leave time for practice and competition
Heroes: Sports stars. Themselves.
Music: ‘Jock Rock’, anything that would sound good coming out of a stadium loudspeaker
Stores: Authentic Sports, The Twins Store (or other official sports team’s outlet)

Greaser

Another primarily male group. Greasers might have made good jocks, if they had been coordinated and socially adept enough. Greasers spend all of their free time waxing, detailing, tinkering with, or showing off their cars. Girls are interested in cars as status symbols, and Greasers often have good ones… but it’s hard to pry their attention away from their One True Love.

Markers: Oily stains, obsession with engine parts, distracted expression
Favorite Quote: “Huh?”
Jobs: Garages, Auto Parts stores
Heroes: Nascar racers, stunt drivers
Music: the hum of a well-oiled machine
Stores: Auto dealers, junkyards, auto parts stores

Gangsta

Deliberately intimidating figures, gangstas travel in small sullen-looking packs and wear clothes that are loose enough to lead more timid types to suspect that they might be concealing weapons - such as a pistol, a knife, or a diamond-studded missile launcher. Gangstas wear jewelry that can be easily spotted by orbiting satellite systems (‘bling’), and are often prematurely deaf due to frequently indulging a generous impulse to share their favorite music with everyone within a ten-mile radius.

Markers: Scowls, hats worn backwards or low over eyes, toddler-like gait due to pants crotches hitting at knee-level
Favorite Quote: … (scowl) …
Jobs: We’re afraid to ask
Heroes: Tupac Shakur
Music: Rap
Stores: Wal-Mart, Sears

Systemite (see Prep)

These innocents make up a large part of the prep’s toadying mob. Conformists through and through, systemites usually come in two flavors: Prep Wannabe’s or Teacher’s Pet. Systemites just want to please, so they are happy to do whatever anyone wants them to do. They have the intestinal fortitude of Kleenex, and about as much individuality. Their expression is similar to that of a rabbit confronted by a snake, and their posture cries out, “I’m sorry I got in your way…”

Markers: Nervous twitch, tendency to become invisible when there’s something better to do (See Prep)
Favorite Quote: “What do you think?” (See Prep)
Jobs: Whatever they’re told to do (See Prep)
Heroes: Whoever is in Authority (See Prep)
Music: Top 20 Pop - how can that many people be wrong? (See Prep)
Stores: Wherever their Hero shops (see Prep)

Stoner

Retro Hippies, their life cycles between two states: High, and Passed Out. Their expression is generally amiable, as is their speech – if you can figure out what they are meaning to say. Stoners like colorful clothing that is easy to find and identify if they happen to take it off and wander away for a little while. Generous to a fault, stoners are happy to give you anything they have, although they can’t quite identify exactly what that might be at any given moment, or where it came from.

Markers: Long hair, tie-dyed clothing, total lack of focus or direction, random fits of giggling, uneven appetite, extreme gullibility
Favorite Quote: “Really?”
Jobs: you’re kidding, right?
Heroes: The Bobs: Bob Marley, Silent Bob
Music: Reggae, World Music, Pink Floyd
Stores: Twisted Groove, Electric Fetus, Ellis Drum Shop

Burnout

Stoners without the charm, generosity, or Connection to the Universe. Burnouts are the early or soon-to-be Homeless, and unlike stoners they also have no spiritual home. Their attitude tends to be one of ‘offence is the best defense,’ seemingly wanting to reject the world before it can officially reject them. Burnouts sometimes hang out in groups, but don’t seem to like each other much, often seeming to use each other for Rejection Practice. Where stoners use drugs to become one with the Universe, burnouts use drugs in order to avoid it.

Markers: Head hunched into shoulders, clothes and hair ragged, grunts when spoken to
Favorite Quote: (too rude to transcribe)
Jobs: Kitchen work, janitorial, manual labor
Heroes: None, on principle
Music: Rock, Heavy Metal
Stores: Army Surplus, Goodwill, dumpsters

Don

The Don’s full title is short for ‘Don Juan de Marco’, also known as ‘Casanova’. Dons dress well, smell good, have at least a passing acquaintance with the arts, are either smooth or smoldering in style, and see the world as an ocean of romantic/sexual possibilities. These guys have social antennae that are as sensitive as those of the preps, but the focus for Dons is primarily on pleasing (at least for a short time) the latest Conquest. They have the Hunt and the Capture (and the Release) down to a fine art, so although on the surface they get along well enough with other guys, eventually they end up ‘poaching’ on too many territories and earn fairly universal resentment from the rest of the male population. Which explains why Dons rarely stay in one environment for very long.

Markers: Good looking, well groomed (even if ‘bad boy’ style don), fashionable, great eye contact, alert to surroundings. Cool.
Favorite Quote: “I’m not totally over her… yet”
Jobs: Actor, Model, Lead Singer in Band
Heroes: Himself, of course
Music: Whatever works
Stores: Whatever is In this week

Loner

The loner is just as he or she sounds. Loners stay in the background, they don’t mix with others, and when approached tend to put potential friends off by being either prickly and surly or silent and dull. Their reasons for being loners varies… sometimes it’s a matter of preference, and sometimes it’s a matter of being ostracized, but by the time they are teens it’s become habitual. Loners by nature are not conformists, and so they don’t fall into any target marketing group.

Markers: Avoid human contact
Favorite Quote: “Hrmph”
Jobs: Graveyard shift, no customer service or teamwork
Heroes: “Hrmph”
Music: N/A (varies)
Stores: N/A (varies)

Miracles Do Happen

2006-07-19T13:35:00.000-07:00

This entry should be accompanied by a picture, but I was unprepared for the Miracle.

You might argue that if I was going to voluntarily bring a beautiful pair of hand-knitted socks to the intended recipient, it shouldn't be entirely unexpected that I might go home at the end of the day Sans Socks. You might point out that a knitter of even moderate intelligence could reasonably be expected to prepare for the possibility, perhaps by taking a photo of said socks prior to toting them to the recipient's house.

You might think that. But that's only because you don't understand...

I have obsessively knit socks for the last three years. Obsessive to the point where people who only see me once or twice a year are starting to discern a pattern. Obsessive to the point where people see me and *ask where the sock is* if it isn't in clear evidence. My husband puts up with the insanity because he is always living in the (occasionally fulfilled) hope that he will be gifted with the current pair-in-process. The Pirate loves him some woolly socks.

My mother, on the other hand, has consistently maintained that the socks are evidence of my increasing Loopiness (loopy, knitting, get it?) and has steadfastly resisted all of my numerous attempts to convince her that hand knit socks are acceptable footwear. The socks are too thick, they'd be too hot. You have to hand wash them, they are too much trouble. The wool is scratchy, but if mixed with anything else it's too binding or isn't sufficiently breathable. The stitches are too big, she could feel them on the bottom of her feet. The ridges along the place where I picked up the stitches from the heel flap are too noticeable, they bother her.

My mom is the Princess & the Pea of sock wearers.

I never gave up, but I did accept the unlikelihood of success.

So when I carefully chose a skein of Cherry Tree Hill Merino Supersock to fit most closely my mother's color preferences, my hopes of actually having the gift accepted were not high.

After knitting a guage swatch, I decided that it almost definitely wasn't soft enough. I tried hard, but couldn't get the ridges off the heel flap quite flat enough. Just In Case, I knitted the socks to fall between my huge foot size and my mother's small foot size, so that when she inevitably rejected the beautiful objects they could still be enjoyed by someone (me).

Maybe I could find some nice bamboo sock yarn? Does soy silk breathe?

I took the socks casually out of my knitting bag and laid them along the back of the couch while unearthing my current sock project (Trekking XL in a particularly exhuberant stripe combo of yellow, green, and gray-blue which the Pirate chose for himself during a trip to the yarn store BY HIMSELF). I told my mom that the socks were my latest finished pair, and asked what she thought of the yarn, and how well the socks fit... I *didn't* tell her that I had made them with her in mind.

SHE LIKED THEM.

She said they were pretty. She said they fit well. She said they felt fine.

So what could I do? I couldn't take them home again... she might change her mind if given the time to think about it. So I packed up the knitting bag again while casually mumbling, "They're yours," and then quickly skedaddled out the door before she could martial any arguments.

So there's no picture.

If I tried, the socks probably wouldn't show up on film anyway. Magical objects are like that...

Up the Establishment

2006-07-18T07:22:00.000-07:00

After yesterday's rant you may be laboring under the impression that you now know why I am not a big fan of the medical establishment in general and Psychologists in specific.

You don't know the half of it.

If you knew that an unfortunate error had been made by an underpaid and probably overworked nurse, and that error had led to the death of my beloved maternal grandmother, and that the hospital had then gone to ridiculous lengths to cover that error up, you might think that the experience might have soured me on the medical profession. You'd be wrong... it soured me on that particular hospital, certainly, but the medical profession *also* saved my life and that of my darling baby, so I'd consider it all a wash.

Nope. The reason I feel the way I do about the Cherrix case and other similar cases, the way I feel about the incestuous relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and the AMA, and the way I feel about the behavior of Experts when they deal with their ~~subjects~~ patients comes from a different source altogether.

A year or two after we defied the System by pulling our child out of it (against the advice of the Experts), I discovered that I had a capacity for rage that I never would have imagined. I experienced true Evil in the form of bureaucratic indifference and arrogance. I saw how absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Before that experience I would have read the above and thought it overly theatrical and in all likelihood hysterical.

That was before someone I loved was in serious danger of being locked up and left insane for the rest of their life simply because a doctor... and then a System... didn't want to be seen to be in (relatively minor) error.

The story is a relatively long one and requires that I fill in some background, so I will tell it in a couple of installments. I'll sandwich it between other, less negative posts... that way you will hopefully understand that I haven't gone entirely round the Reactionary Bend. But we are all shaped by our experiences, and this is mine.

Unfortunately for her, it is also my sister's. If anything, the story will hopefully give you an understanding and some respect for a group of people that tend to be ignored, mocked, and sometimes tortured by the 'average citizen'... and all too often by the people who are being paid to care for them.

Hysteric/Hysterical, Tomayto/Tomahto

2006-07-14T21:50:00.000-07:00

The Vampire is a handsome, charming, funny, creative, enthusiastic, sensitive, and occasionally brilliant kid.

The Vampire has Asperger's Syndrome.

AS is a disorder on the Autistic Spectrum. It has a wide variety of symptoms. Few people have *all* of the many symptoms associated with AS, and because many of those symptoms are shared with other 'popular' disorders (Attention Deficit Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, various Behavioral Disorders, various types of learning disabilities) AS is difficult to diagnose, and is often misdiagnosed - sometimes multiple times - before the correct diagnosis is arrived at.

AS is associated with a wide range of comorbid conditions - Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Sensory Integration disorders are common (although many of us believe that some of these are less a disorder in themselves and more a reasonable reaction to the world as a person with AS experiences it).**

The most common 'symptom' that all people with AS share is difficulty with social interaction. Recent studies of patients with AS show that instead of reading faces and body language with the part of the brain that is activated in most people, people with AS use the same part of the brain that is used for assessing inanimate objects. In other words, in the brain of a person with AS, there is little difference processing-wise between a person and a chair.

Which means that whatever they do when dealing with people, they have to learn by rote rather than by instinct... they learn to interact with others the way most people learn to play the piano. And in many cases, they have to learn it without the benefit of a knowledgeable and understanding teacher. They have trouble with 'normal' social functions, such as making eye contact, interpreting facial expressions and body language, and using the abstract thinking processes that allow people to communicate beyond literal/factual statements. They tend to be literal in their communications and their interpretation of the communications of others, and as a result they tend to be very gullible... which makes them irrisistable targets for bullies and other predators.

Which is a partial explanation for the Vampire's school experience, and why by the end of 5th grade he was experiencing uncontrollable meltdowns, frequent bouts of self-destructive rage, paranoia, and suicidal depression. Counseling at school had proved worse than useless, and repeated attempts at finding a support group for kids/teens with AS or any sort of Social Training ended in frustrating failure.

In spite of our moderate income and lack of adequate health insurance, we spent a great deal of time and money trying to find help for our suffering child.

Easier said than done. Adequate treatment for AS is still very difficult for most people to find, in spite of recent advances in understanding of the syndrome. More importantly, parents not only find it difficult to get help for their child when they turn to the medical and educational 'experts' - they often find themselves victimized by the very people they turn to for help. The following is just one example.

------------------------

I am forever and officially labeled a 'Hysteric' in my son's medical records - not because I raised my voice or got agitated, but because I calmly and rationally explained to several therapists that due to:

a) my son's physical issues, some of which have to do with growth and hormones and bone age (some of the meds prescribed affect to some degree growth, weight gain, and hormonal development)

b) my family's strong history on both sides of having severe 'adverse reactions' to medicines in general and neurological medicines in particular

c) my husband's family's strong history of addictions, my son having the type of personality and history that is particularly prone to addiction, and the fact that the meds in question were stimulants and tend to need to be gradually increased in dosage/added to over time

d) the studies done on these meds showing that they have a relatively low rate of effectiveness on people with multiple co-morbid conditions, which my son had

d) the lack of a clear understanding (even among doctors and pharmacists) of what exactly these medicines actually do, a lack of long-term studies on what the medicines recommended do to an immature brain when used over time, and a significant history of adverse effects in a not insignificant number of children... including suicide

e) the lack of a clear and consistant diagnosis for him thus far (AS was the 5th and hopefully last in a line of changing diagnoses we'd been given during his school career) on which the prescription was based

and

e) the emotional/behavioral problems that he was having were provably directly related to an adverse environment (school), and abated when he was removed from that environment

... I had decided that medication was not the right *first line of treatment* for my son. I made clear that I wasn't ruling medications out, simply that I wanted to try other treatments first - ones that weren't invasive, and had less possibility of harmful side effects.

One doctor told me that 'withholding' medication was child abuse and tantamount to refusing to give a deaf child hearing aids.

One admonished me for being Hysterical and Paranoid.

One did the same, and added that we weren't in the Dark Ages anymore and told me, "Stop descending to the same idiotic, caveman level of people like Christian Scientists and Scientologists." (does my reasoning above seem reactionary & idiotic?)

One told me that I could 'withhold' (again that word, as though my son were pleading for help and I were refusing him as a punishment) the medications for a while, but it was pointless... he would not get better without, I would be forced to medicate him sooner or later.

They all agreed (as did the educational Experts that we consulted) that homeschooling was the last thing in the world we should try, as it would deprive him of the exact Socialization/Social Practice that he so badly needed. Even though it was the School version of Socialization/Social Practice that was causing these problems in the first place, and after 7 years of application the Vampire had not significantly advanced in his understanding or application of 'normal' social behavior.

His peers were rapidly leaving him behind... and increasingly they were ostracizing and punishing him for it. The universally prescribed solution was to put him on a round of drugs and increased exposure his School Peers' tender mercies.

I tried to be patient and reasonable. I carefully took their advice as far as school and behavioral/therapeutic interventions went. I took him to regular sessions with therapists. We searched for a better school environment for him, even in private schools that we could not really afford. He even tried a week of schooling at our lovely local Waldorf School; unfortunately he found the academic pace too slow and although the other kids were polite and not unkind, the teacher felt that his 'sophistication' (in 5th grade his jokes tended towards memorized complex political satire, and his other conversational gambits involved movies and other Media-driven interests, which are discouraged for Waldorf youngsters) made him unlikely to 'fit in'. Not that 'fitting in' was even on our radar screen by then. We just wanted to have hope that he would survive his adolescence.

In the end, with a great deal of trepidation and against the strong urgings of the Experts*** we had consulted, we decided to try homeschooling.

Within six months we had our cheerful, confident child back again.

Within two years he had learned more social skills from other homeschooled kids than he had learned in 7 years of school... and his social interactions were all positive. He went from being bullied and ostracized to having more social connections and appointments than we were able to schedule in. He will probably always be considered Eccentric/Odd, and he will probably encounter social environments in which he will find it difficult or even impossible to function successfully... but he knows there are environments in which he can succeed, he knows how to find and make friends, how to get support in interpreting the world, and hopefully he now has a greater ability to Cope.

And we did it all without recourse to messing about with his neurology.

But it was clear... it was made *abundantly* clear by the 'Experts' we had voluntarily consulted and paid for... that given the chance they would force us to medicate our son, against our will and his own. I have to give some credence to the thought that the written reports labeling me as a paranoid hysteric, and the pointed references to Child Abuse/Neglect may in part have been intended as a potential legal groundwork should the Experts feel that I was going to stubbornly refuse medication after a period of time (one therapist specified six months as being the outer limits of the time she expected it would take before I would, "...be forced to change (my) mind and use medication").

This is not the only, or even the most egregious case of interference and bullying by the medical (and in this case, educational) establishment towards my family, not to mention friends and acquaintances.*** And legal interference/enforcement in medical treatment is becoming more and more common, and more and more intrusive, in the last decade or so. In at least the case of the rapidly increasing incidence of legally forced electroshock therapy for the mentally ill, and forced drugging of the elderly patients in our nation's nursing homes, it's becoming alarming.

Is this how you will want your parents treated when they become too old to care for (or fight for) themselves? Is this how you will want to be treated when you have to decide on treatment for a catastrophic illness of your child, your spouse, yourself?

**The incidence of Autistic Spectrum Disorders is thought to be on the rise, beyond what increased diagnosis could account for. More info on AS - including symptoms, resources, how loved ones and teachers can cope, etc. - can be found here.

***This isn't a blanket condemnation of Experts, or of doctors. We continue to be extremely grateful to our son's fabulous pediatrician, who has always been supportive and helpful in every way. Our family practitioner is wonderful, and we've met with specialists over the years who have behaved perfectly reasonably and ethically. I don't expect doctors to be omniscient... in fact, my complaint is with doctors who are inclined to believe themselves to be just that.
I respect the years of training and experience they have invested in their field of study. I just want them to respect the years of training and experience I have invested in *my* field of study, which is my unique and specific child. I am paying them to be my partner in helping this kid of mine; I am not trying to hand the responsibility of raising him over to anyone, and feel that since *we and our son* are the ones who will be held accountable for his behavior and are the ones who have to live with the results of whatever decisions are made, we should be the ones with the final say as to what those decisions should be.

Hot Under the Collar

2006-07-14T09:30:00.000-07:00

And hot everywhere else, too. With high humidity and projected triple digit temps, Minnesota is clearly not always nice!

We don't have A/C, so we plan to spend most of the next few days in places which are.

Which is why I will wait until next week to explain my personal reasons for being so enraged by this particular news item, which relates the struggle cancer patient Abraham Cherrix and his parents are waging in order to be allowed to decide their own fate (and treatment).

Note particularly that because the family involved did not agree with 'their' doctors, the state (which can be counted on to support the position of the state-run hospital and its employees) has been given 'joint custody' of the young man involved... which means that both he and his parents will not be allowed to make any decision that isn't in lockstep with that of the Authorities.

It's one more illustration of a disturbing trend in our medical, judicial and political systems, a situation rendered all the more weird and frightening when one looks at the concurrent trend towards lack of personal responsibility and honesty in both our personal and our public lives.

We need to start thinking very hard about just how far we, as a society and as individuals, are willing to go when we take the position that We Are Our Brother's/Sister's Keepers. The consequences are huge... and unfortunately easy to ignore until it's too late for you or your loved ones.

Martin Niemöller wrote, "Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up." It's not always easy to identify who 'they' are, especially when They Are Us.

We're a Practical People...

2006-07-11T07:38:00.000-07:00

... so of course, given a Cool Day in the mid 80's and a predicted week of temps in the mid 90's and possibly up to 100 (with lots of humidity), and given no air conditioning, the Pirate and I decided that now would be an excellent time to spend with some nice, woolly Malabrigo yarn.

The good thing about this fit of insanity is that it turns out that the Pirate is a genius.
He not only caught on to purling very quickly (even though he announces that purling is Evil), but he also figured out the Long Tail Cast On in less two minutes.

(aren't you jealous? don't you wish YOU had a genius for a husband?)

The bad thing about this fit of insanity is that there is no way on earth that he's going to get any more practice in the coming week (being insane but not suicidal), and of course will have to learn both things all over again after this heat wave passes.

Sometime in the next century or two, then.

But really, isn't he clever?

Total Goober Moment

2006-07-07T13:16:00.000-07:00

(distractedly half-watching new show "Kyle XY" with Vampire last week whilst busily turning the heel of a sock)

Me: That's ridiculous. Why would a kid pull down his pants and sit down on the toilet cover?

Teenaged Son: (incredulous look at his inexplicably dense mother)

[kid on screen plucks girlie magazine out of hiding place]

Teenaged Son: (clears throat pointedly)

Me: Oh. Right. Never mind...

Controlling, Moi?

2006-07-07T07:56:00.000-07:00

Me: When I am dead and you talk to me in your head, will you call me Mama, or Mom?

Kid: Mom.

Me: Really?

Kid: Definitely.

.......

Me: I won't answer, you know.

A VERY Happy 4th!

2006-07-04T21:27:00.000-07:00

It's 11:30 pm and the Vampire isn't back from his carousing yet... but he called home twice, so I know he's safe and having lots of fun, and we aren't to expect him home for another hour at least. What the heck, he's with friends, and it's the Glorious Fourth!

---------------------------

In the meantime, we had what the Pirate, my folks, and I all feel is the best and most festive Independence Day in many a year. We had a grand time, and I thought I'd share a bit of it with you!

First, we all gathered on the patio at the St. Anthony Park Home, decorated ourselves and the wheelchairs, painted ourselves with sunscreen, and were ready to go.

Here's the Pirate, flirting with my grandmother (sporting the dashing hat) and friend, Evelyn (sporting the dubious expression, although luckily for the Pirate's reputation, the camera angle hides it well).

Once we were well and truly organized, we all took off for the park, where the 4th of July Parade participants were gathering. The weather was gorgeous, warm with just enough breeze to cool the brow, flutter the flags and rotate the pinwheels.

We spent some time waiting for the parade to begin, and made a few new friends (front row is Evelyn, grandma, and the talented Margaret; middle row is my mom and two extremely well-dressed clowns; back row is me, my shade hat and a flag) .

Once the parade was ready to begin, we wheeled down the road en masse, to the delight of both audience and participants.

John, the dedicated owner of the St. Anthony Park Home, circled the participants in his Uni-que manner...

Once we had returned to the Home, we settled on the beautiful patio for a most delightful picnic lunch.

We had croissant sandwiches (chicken salad), mixed fruit, potato chips, and dark chocolate chunk brownies, washed down with much-appreciated cold beverages of various sorts.

The residents then went up to the sunroom for a hotly contested game of Bingo. Their exhausted families went home for a mid-day snooze! We couldn't have had a better time.

-------------------------

The Vampire just got home, safe and sound and ready to recount his day to his loving Mom. I can't wait... well, I can, just long enough to download the photos here. I hope your day was as lovely as ours was!

Happy 4th!

2006-07-04T06:07:00.000-07:00

Just want to wish a quick "Happy Independence Day!" to the US readers. The Pirate and I are about to meet my folks and go en masse to the wonderful nursing home where my grandmother lives. There we will help decorate the wheelchairs of the participants, and then we will push them down to the nearby park for our own Fourth of July parade and picnic. Luckily the temps have gone down from 'broil' to 'gentle bake', so we won't have to be unreasonably concerned about sunstroke. Should be a grand time!

In the meantime, the Vampire will be biking about the city of St. Paul with his Fencing-and-Gaming friends, wreaking havoc on the general populace.

They will be attending Taste of Minnesota, where a parent will be playing in a band. They will probably be LARPing in Como Park. They will be watching fireworks from somewhere in downtownish St. Paul. Heaven knows what else they will be up to...

Don't worry too much, St. Paulites. This is a group of very sweet geeky teens, and generally they only hit each other with the swords.

But I can't vouch for their aim, so it might be best to keep a safe distance. Just in case...

With Apologies to the Pirate...

2006-07-03T08:29:00.000-07:00

... it's still comical that we get particularly upset when other people (most of all, our kids) do as we do.

The Pirate got really ticked off when he accidently knocked into an open bottle of mineral water that the Vampire left on the floor next to the couch last night... worse, the Vampire was off at a friend's house, so the Pirate had to clean up the puddle himself and had no better an audience for his subsequent mini-tirade than his unsympathetic wife.

Unsympathetic, because said wife spends what she considers an unreasonable amount of time picking up half-full cans of beer and glasses of water off the bit of floor adjacent to the Pirate's favorite PSII game-playing seat, usually during the time of day when the Pirate has traipsed off to work and is unavailable for mop-up duty.

I'm not complaining about the Pirate and his ways - at least, not at the moment. I have PLENTY of annoying slobular habits myself, which the Pirate mostly lets slide and/or compensates for - and what's more you couldn't find a more loving and kindly guy anywhere on earth. You couldn't get my guy out of my clutches with a crowbar.

What I'm saying is that we spend a lot more time complaining about our kid's behavior than we spend looking at their role models for that behavior, and more time complaining about annoying traits in our friends and neighbors and fellow motorists than we spend examining our own shortcomings, and that if we made a log of our favorite complaints about others and compared them to a list of the complaints our friends and family made about *us*, we might find a lot more similarity there than would make us entirely comfortable.

I will try to remember that next time I complain about territorial driving, tardiness, self-centeredness, monopolizers of conversation, criticism, tactlessness, lack of gratitude, thoughtlessness, or lack of responsibility.

Which should be in about three minutes, give or take 60 seconds...

When Is It Constructive?

2006-06-27T08:39:00.000-07:00

We spent much of this week recuperating from the previous week. And even though we were very busy with driving everyone around the entire earth several times (well, okay, maybe it just felt that way) and with taking a 'class' that involved spending hours and hours every day for two weeks playing random verbal versions of what amounts to 'Mad Libs' that the people who paid huge amounts of money for the class don't quite see the point of (it's possible that people who dangle their modifiers simply aren't bright enough to Get It), and even though we spent more money and MUCH more time than we wished on the resulting Performance (most of which did not involve The Kid) - we have to say that the it was the emotional turmoil of Sunday that really took it out of us.

Sunday being the day that the Vampire's loving-but-not-always-tactful grandfather (spurred on by having been one of the people who funded said expensive 'class') chose to give the Young Thespian the gift of a bit of (Constructive?) Criticism.

We won't go into details here, as both interested parties consequently had a very stressful day, and by evening were both calmed and regretful enough of the entire incident that they took great effort and care in making up... not easy when both parties felt entirely innocent in the matter and both felt that they were trying to uphold certain important principles. Whether either's explanations made any sense to the other made little difference; what was important is that both came away understanding that each loved the other, and that they both were Trying (in all senses of the word).

But I wonder: on issues that are truly important to us, is it even possible to honestly ask for the opinion of, or offer truly constructive criticism to, people who really matter? If, for instance, you were to offer up to your best friend your true critical opinion of their child's flaws (or their own parenting mistakes), do you think they would honestly thank you, no matter how objectively accurate your observations might be, however kindly your intentions and wording might be?

What do you think?

Is He Sick, or Just a Jerk?

2006-06-22T11:45:00.000-07:00

I've seen a few articles lately claiming that 'road rage' is a diagnosable disorder.

Ronald Kessler, professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School, is getting quite a bit of press time lately due to his enthusiasm regarding this particular theory. Dr. Kessler - citing a study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the findings of which appeared in the June issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry - wants us to know that lots of people have this 'disorder', perhaps more than 7% of the population.

That's a pretty impressive claim, given that less than 1% suffer from schizophrenia, only 2.6% suffer from bipolar disorder, all the 'personality disorders' put together only account for 7.9%, and the most generous statistic for depression - the most common disorder of all - is 25% over a lifetime (including situational depression, the sort you'd have when your spouse or child or parent dies... personally, I'd think you had a disorder if you didn't get depressed in such a situation).

Of course, Kessler headed up the study... he could be suspected of having a vested interest in the matter.

According to the DSM-IV (the diagnostic handbook of psychiatry), people with "Intermittent Explosive Disorder" overreact to certain situations with uncontrollable rage, experience a sense of relief during the angry outburst, and then feel remorse about their actions.

People who work in the areas of Domestic Violence and law enforcement are pretty familiar with that particular emotional/behavioral process... and so are school teachers, and parents of young children.

Parents and teachers, of course, generally don't see this behavior as pathological. They see it as being a normal stage of emotional maturity (or lack thereof), and deal with it affectively in most cases... by teaching three skills that are *also* taught in Anger Management classes for adults with Domestic Violence issues. Those three skills are:

1. Self Assessment. This involves learning how to figure out what feelings precipitated the action, what triggered those feelings, and what alternatives are available for dealing with those emotions.

2. Empathy. This involves learning how to figure out what the other person experienced, working out how they might have felt about it by imagining oneself in their place. Taking this to the next step often involves figuring out how the other person's feelings and reactions impact one's own life... enlightened self-interest is a more stable motivator than feelings of affection, which can fluctuate pretty radically.

3. Self Control. This third skill basically boils down to recognizing the beginning of a build-up towards rage and applying the first two skills prior to taking action.

In other words, most cases of IED-type behavior are not due to a chemical or neurological disorder... they are due to a lack of emotional skills and maturity that even small children can learn fairly easily if they are willing to do so.

Are there people who truly can't learn those skills, no matter how willing they are and no matter how skillful the teacher? Sure, I imagine there are a rare few. But I suspect that this would be easily found to be due to serious brain injury or a major disorder that has already been on the DSM for a long time, where the ability to empathize or to assess cause and effect are seriously compromised. In which case the resultant behavior is not a disorder so much as it's a symptom.

Here is where I take issue with Dr. Kessler, and with the DSM-IV. The psychiatric profession is adding clinical 'disorders' to the DSM at a rather profligate rate, and it bothers me. Whatever their reasoning may be in terms of treatment, I don't think the practical effects are good for us as a society or as individuals, for two reasons:

~ it tends to relieve us of responsibility for indulging in a particular set of behaviors - and excuses us for not putting forth adequate efforts to change them (or instill them in our children),

and

~ it tends to unnecessarily encourage the already overly aggressive pharmaceuticalization of America (and as America goes...) In other words, given the excuse that it's an illness rather than a lack of skills or maturity, people will often take the easy out of dosing themselves (or worse, their children) with brain-altering chemicals rather than taking the time and effort to acquire and apply perfectly learnable skills.

Great for the psychiatrists, who get permanent patients, and great for the pharmaceutical industries, who get rich... but what does it do to us?

Hey!

2006-06-22T09:36:00.000-07:00

I just found out that if you Google "minnesota goodbye" (inc. quotation marks), I am the very first link you get! Without quotation marks I rank lower, somewhere between 3rd and 4th... still, not bad. Thanks, Gentle Readers!

Escape to Home

2006-06-21T13:43:00.000-07:00

I was enjoying this today (hysterical, link and enjoy if you haven't already), and noticed that once again Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill was used to good effect. I first heard this particular song in a movie, and subsequently in more than a dozen more movies, movie trailers, and television shows - not to mention the radio exposure.

You'd think I'd be sick of it, as I've become so many times before when overexposed to pop songs.

But I'm not. I have it in my iTunes. And I stopped this morning to wonder why this is.

The tune is bright and rhythmical and melodic, but I don't think that fully explains the particular charm this song seems to exert over a pretty wide range of demographics. So I thought about what it is that I really love about it, and I think I've reached a reasonable conclusion.

It's the lyrics... specifically, it's one line of lyrics. I think it's brilliant, I think it hits a universal chord that runs through the heart of every person who has ever been homesick, or lonely, or sad, or vulnerable, or scared, or who has ever just plain felt unloved. It's the promise of love, warmth, safety, and escape from our cares. It's the thing that sooner or later we've all wanted to hear more than anything else, the Greatest Promise. It's the thing we want to hear at our last breath, at the very end of life.

Grab your things, I've come to take you Home.

The Sky Is Grey...

2006-06-21T09:31:00.000-07:00

... the birds are singing, the temps aren't *too* bad, and there's a breeze. Well, nothing is perfect, but it's close enough for government work, as my mom (who worked for the state revenue department) says. Yesterday's massive sinus headache is down to a dim roar**, and that's good enough for me. I think I'll take a walk, and a nap. Not necessarily in that order.

I've got several posts in one stage of "Draft" or other, and I'll trot them out as I finish them. Why do I have good ideas when my head is exploding? When, in fact, there is little I can do about them?

Anyway, I'm off... but I'll Be Back (with sunglasses, too, but without automatic weapons and impressive pecs).

** I think a sinus headache can legitimately be described as 'massive' when you know that a sinus med is working a bit because it is relieving enough pressure to let you feel your eyes sinking back into your head, don't you?

Escape to Home

2006-06-21T09:26:00.000-07:00

Oops... Ack!

2006-06-18T20:51:00.000-07:00

I FORGOT FATHER'S DAY.

This might be understandable, to some degree, given my current state of extreme brainfog, except that I've been thinking about it and planning for it all week. I was going to take the kid out on Saturday, we were going to do some grocery shopping, and then we were going to get a card for his dad, a card for his grandpa (from me), and lil' ol' gifties for both.

But the Pirate did a big grocery haul on Friday night, the sweetie, so I decided to spend the time finishing up on chores around the house and the internet... and since I didn't have the 'trigger' of grocery shopping to remind me, I forgot about Father's Day.

Completely.

So completely that I didn't remember it this (Sunday) morning, either. Or in the afternoon, on the way to the folks' house. I remembered it after I'd been sitting for an hour on the porch with my mom, sipping lemonade and languidly chatting about this and that.

Long after the Pirate and Dad had disappeared downstairs to play pool... and way too late to do anything about my belated brainstorm.

*sigh*

Not only wasn't it understandable, it wasn't even excusable.

Because last year I totally ripped the kid and spouse to pieces for forgetting my birthday. I laid the guilt on thick, yup. So the Pirate was VERY CAREFUL to have a card and big bunch of roses at the ready on Mother's Day. He made sure I knew he appreciated me, you betcha. And he made sure the kid wrote me a poem.

I am an idiot.

And now I appreciate the Pirate even more, because I spent the rest of the day pushing, pulling, nagging, coaxing, bribing, and threatening the kid into writing a poem for his dad. In the end I pretty much exiled him to the office and told him he couldn't come out until he'd finished it.

If the Pirate did that in order to get that Mother's Day poem written for me, he deserves a real Father's Day even more than I realized.

(Boy, can that kid procrastinate and weasel out of things! Is there a career available that specializes in Avoidance? He'd make a fortune...)

I don't think self-flagellation will be a good option, since the Pirate would be the one who would have to nurse me back to (something resembling) health. So what would be an appropriate way to show my remorse - and my love and appreciation?

(Other than plain old fashioned apologies: Bee, I'm REALLY, REALLY sorry - you deserved a parade, and you barely got a footnote. I'm going to make it up to you. Promise. I'd cross my heart, but you've already got it, and I don't want to ask to have it back... it's obviously in better hands where it is!)

Is it Art? Or is it Memorex?

2006-06-16T21:04:00.000-07:00

More than a decade ago I attended a very sad funeral for the brother of an old and dear friend. The funeral was not sad for the reasons one associates with funerals, but rather because of its lack of those things. The man in question was young, and there was a deal of doubt as to whether the action that caused his passing was accidental or deliberate on his part. What we did know was that his life had been short, lonely, and quietly desperate - that he had been touched by few other lives, and had touched few lives himself. His father, his stepmother, his brother and I were the only attendees at his funeral. The presiding minister had never met him. The service was short. I was the only one to cry - and I cried not for his loss, but for the loss of what his life could or should have been and wasn't. The tragedy was in the waste, rather than the loss... and that others should feel that way about someone, that seemed a tragedy as well.

We wanted to do something after the service that would have been more meaningful to the man himself, as a sort of celebration of his darkly ironic sense of humor. Luckily the church was right next door to a local modern art museum, where we knew we'd find plenty to mock and deride... and we weren't disappointed. We arrived to find that the museum in question was featuring a special exhibition of a nationally touring collection of award-winning avant-garde works, and it was opening that very weekend. Lots of very serious people were frowning thoughtfully at various objects, such as the extremely expensively displayed weathered board with the rusted nails sticking out of it. That is, when they weren't frowning at *me*.

Really, modern art is valuable if for no other reason than that it provides an egalitarian environment in which *everyone* is offered the opportunity to enjoy a good laugh at the expense of both artists and audience.

Keith would have appreciated it.

Which helped me put to rest a bit of the lingering resentment I held towards the studio art teachers I suffered through in my college days. To be honest, I resented the lazy, self-involved and outrageously puffed-up teachers less than I resented the university itself for taking outrageous amounts of my money - and the taxpayers' money, in many students' cases - in order to line the pockets of talentless charletans who offered their students not one tool, not one skill, not one useful insight, not one moment of even mild inspiration.

But now when I see a modern art installation, or a rusty nail, I think of Keith and of the good healing laughter his brother and I shared that day, and at least for me it all has gained a little more meaning and value thereby.

I offer you this entry with insincere apologies to the Walker Art Center, and true gratitude to Sis for bringing this article to my attention...

The Minnesota Goodbye

2006-06-14T21:47:00.000-07:00

My dearest friend, Sis - who hails from the southern half of the US - just informed me that she was unaware of the (In)famous Minnesota Goodbye. My family SPECIALIZES in the MG, so I thought I'd share our version of it with you. I imagine that there is something like the MG in some other states/families, but believe me, if you aren't a Minnesota Native you haven't experienced the Real Thing in its full and dysfunctional glory.

The Minnesota Goodbye starts subtly, usually at the point at which you notice that your host's eyes are starting to droop. You say you have to be going - so of course you are offered a bit more desert and coffee. And you have it, because your hostess' face is semaphoring her fear that you might starve to death during the trip home... or worse, that you secretly thought her baking was just a wee bit overdone.

After eating your second helping of rhubarb buckle you say you REALLY have to be going. And then the host asks you a question or two that starts up a new thread of conversation, so you stay for a little more coffee. And maybe a bathroom break.

Then your spouse starts looking at his watch, and you say you truly do have to go, you have to go to work in the morning. But your hostess remembers that she had some photos that she meant to give you, so you wait for her to dig them up and then you have to go through them and appreciate them, and then she wants to pack up some extra desert and dinner leftovers for you to take home. You say (several times, in gradually weakening tones... resistance is futile, you *will* be assimilated) that you really can't, but she insists. You say you don't want to be a bother, but she insists - and besides, she's already dishing things into the container(s) and covering it/them with tin foil. You say how wonderful the hotdish was, and she writes out the recipe on a card for you. And then she has to rummage around in the utility drawer/closet for the right-sized bag for the leftover container(s). By then she is telling you about her sister's knee surgery, and the trouble she's had with her own knees.

The next thing you know you are having more coffee.

Eventually you tear yourself out of her gracious clutches, and you head staunchly for the door. But you have to stop at the exit for everyone to hug and say how nice it's been, and then have a discussion about when you are all going to get together again, and where, and what you will do, and who else should be invited. Your hostess tells a couple stories about the doings of mutual friends/family who won't be able to make it to the next gathering. Then you all hug again and say goodbye, and head out the door. The host and hostess stand inside of the screen door for a bit, waving goodbye and calling out last minute warnings about the weather and the road conditions.

Once you get either into the car (if it is parked less than 100 inches from the door) or to the end of the driveway (if you are parked along the curb or at the bottom of the driveway) it gets too difficult and tacky to yell like that, so your hostess and host scurry down to join you. You all tell each other again what a nice time you had, and how good it would be to do it all again. More warnings about getting home safely. Your host notices something about your car, and the men have a discussion about how/where to fix it and other cars that they have had that didn't seem to get damaged as easily as this one. The women again discuss the food at dinner, how wonderful it was, and you insist that you could *never* have pulled off a dinner like that yourself. Your hostess recalls all the wonderful dishes you've served up in the past, and reminds you to send her the recipe for that pasta salad you brought to the last family/company/bridge club picnic.

Eventually you close the car doors and back down the driveway or start down the street, but you do it slowly and with your windows down, because your host and hostess are still scurrying after you with extra safety concerns and thanks for your company and questions about whether you've heard from Mary Ann lately, and does she have a new phone number, and if so please call and let them know what it is. You agree, and there's more goodbyes, and occasionally an attempt at a last hug through the windows. You both continue to wave and call out goodbyes and safety tips as you disappear from view.

The Minnesota Goodbye. It's a thing of awe and wonder.

And, given all that coffee, insomnia.

A Long Gap

2006-06-14T21:38:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the gap in communications. My very dear friend The Fabulous Susan had a sudden death in her family, and came across for a week's visit. I've been more or less rushed off my feet, between TFS' visit and the Vampire's class at the wonderful Brave New Workshop and my own change of email address with it's attendant panicked reorganizing and resending of nearly a thousand emails (I'm as much of a packrat of emails as I am a packrat of... well, yarn, for one obvious example) and alerting of friends of said change (if I forgot to alert you or you were one of the several posts that got bounced back to me, email me at the old address any time in the next week or so, I'll send you the new one).

Hopefully the worst of the frenzied activity is over (I still have some address changes to work through, mostly business-related). I think I'll go put my feet up for a few moments...

Seasons of Stress... err, Love

2006-06-05T06:16:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that although I was extremely grateful for the sympathetic nature of my Blogging friends, and appreciated the kindness shown in their reaction to my last post, it surprised me considerably that they saw my description of that day's as being particularly noteworthy in the Stress category. I found the argument with the kid to be stressful, because we are normally a pretty low-key family as far as communications go. And financial issues certainly put extra pressure on us at the moment. But the day's schedule was not particularly unusual.

Then I realized that none of my readers are owners of Teenagers.

It is the nature of Parenting Teenagers - at least in our day and age - that you spend your days in a constant round of:

rushing around from place to place in order to get them to the next class/performance/game/social event

and then

waiting and/or volunteer-laboring while they participate in their class/performance/game/social event.

Your reward is that on the (in the case of male teens: rare) occasion you are stunned by the realization that your kid is Practically Grown up, that s/he scrubs up rather nicely, and that s/he is turning into a human being that you wouldn't mind voluntarily inviting to a social gathering... of people you actually like.

The downsides are the many, many occasions on which you realize that your child is actually an Alien Being, that you don't have time to run your own life, and that you have been officially downgraded to Near Imbecile status for the foreseeable future and therefor are doomed to be an object of alternating Condescending Pity and Exasperated Scorn for at least a decade.

Send not to know for whom the eye rolls, it rolls for thee.

The point being that although it can be stressful and exhausting to be the parent of a teenager, it helps to know that there is an end to it at some point, and that it's all just a natural part of the process. It's All Normal.

No promises about your teenager...

A Joyful Noise

2006-06-04T08:17:00.000-07:00

It's been a hard week.

Our finances are in dire straits; our home, schedule, and health haven't entirely recovered from the strains that the Vampire's last production put on them; the heat of last week sapped away what little energy we had left, and I haven't been able to find the source of the steady stream of about 5 flies per day that we've been warring with for the past week.

So I wasn't in a terribly good mood yesterday as I fried up the tortilla on which I was piling scrambled eggs, sausage, veg, cheese, and herbs. I wasn't particularly aware of this until I was in the process of plating up the food and cleaning off the table, simultaneously informing the Vampire that he had to use the ketchup or salsa, because we only had enough barbecue sauce (his condiment of choice) to use on the chicken earmarked for dinner. The Vampire, in his accustomed lawyerly manner, tried to argue the matter out to his short-term advantage.

I've found that I've recently lost the ability to multi-task, and that attempts on the part of others to force me to do so tend to make me irritable. My response in this case was less than friendly. The ensuing discussion was more heated than normal, and left both of us headachy and exhausted.

Not a good start to what we knew would be a relatively stressful day, one which involved: getting the Vampire to a rehearsal, then to a store to pick out the outfit required for the concert (remember the dire finances? stressful...), then back home for washing up and ironing and dressing up, then to the folks' house to pick up their video camera, then discovering that the (required) tie was stained and so back home for another one, then an attempt to pick up the Pirate from work (he wasn't available yet), then drop off the Vampire at the concert site, then back to pick up the Pirate, back again to the concert site... then I couldn't remember if I had locked the folks' deadbolt, so the Pirate had to run back to the folks' house (I *had* locked it, but was in enough of a hurry that I did it on AutoPilot and couldn't bring it to specific memory) and then back to the concert site (must fill gas tank again, stressful...), then make small talk with surrounding concert-goers, listen to concert, head towards home but stop for grocery shopping (stressful...), home after 10:30 pm, eat sandwiches as a late dinner, watch a video to unwind, read a bit to unwind more, fall into bed exhausted at around 1 am.

But... but... the concert. The concert which the Vampire had reluctantly agreed to do for his own good, because he connected his stint in the Boychoir to his years in School - to which he'd attached a good deal of phobia-enhanced dread and anger - and which he was attending purely as an exercise in facing his own fears. The concert which he had been dreading and yet stolidly preparing for musically over the past couple weeks. The concert which he'd made one last attempt to avoid on theoretically financially-concerned basis that very morning...

It was wonderful, it was beautiful, it was uplifting, it was everything a concert should be. And the Vampire faced it with grace and dignity. He triumphed. And he enjoyed himself.

We were incredibly proud of him.

Yeah, it was all worth it.

And tonight we'll have barbecued chicken.

----------------

For those interested, the concert was performed by the Minnesota Boychoir, and the Vampire was invited to sing as a guest Alumni performer. Go hear them sometime, if they are touring in your neighborhood (they'll be in New York shortly)... they kick choral heinie.

Whole Lot of Warming Going On...

2006-06-02T15:44:00.000-07:00

The Vampire saw several more of those spiders hanging out on the sidewalk during his several-mile bike ride yesterday, which means that ours was not an isolated stowaway inherited from a neighbor.

Which means that either they are stowing away with visitors from New Orleans or some such in record numbers, or they are migrating north with the effects of Global Warming.

What's your guess?

In the meantime:

Is there a physics theorem that explains how teenaged boys can sit all day in front of a video game machine and still manage to get holes in their socks and pants legs?

And:

I suspect that the Pirate's progress will slow down with the heating up of the weather, but look upon this, ye knitfans, and stand amazed (the seeming narrowing from top to bottom is due to camera angle, not the knitting, which is amazingly even... I tell you, I'm puffed up with pride. I taught him!!):

Eewww...

2006-05-31T12:24:00.000-07:00

We found something nearly an inch long that looked like this

crawling around in our kitchen window. Threateningly.

Okay, we know that theoretically jumping spiders - even unnaturally huge ones that make thumping noises when they step - are (relatively) harmless.

We don't care. We sent it to meet it's Maker. Because it was pacing directly above our stove, and we weren't sure that if we had to wrestle with it over tonight's chicken, we would emerge victorious.

We weren't afraid to use our swords, if we had to...

(we used hairspray and a mercifully brief drubbing with a rolled up newspaper, instead)

Stuff For Mrs. Pao

2006-05-30T16:10:00.000-07:00

... who needs a bit of cheering up. Although I think her Gang may not appreciate my giving her ideas!

Stuff of the Day

2006-05-30T15:37:00.000-07:00

Do you remember the Upper Class Twit of the Year Pentathlon skit that Monty Python did?

Is this a Cultural Thing?

(Thanks for this one, Sis)

Freaks, Geeks, & Bad Boys

2006-05-29T15:23:00.000-07:00

The Vampire has already auditioned for, and gotten a part in, a musical at a theater that is new for him.

We found out about the auditions on the Monday following the last weekend of Little Shop of Horrors. He auditioned on Tuesday; without time to prepare, he ended up doing an a capella version of 'Suppertime' from LSoH. On Wednesday they called to let him know that he got a part. One of the main roles, actually.

Could be really cool, great experience. Hooray! etc...

Our only two issues with this scenario:

1. Of the four main male roles, two are baritenors (one highish, one medium), one is bass-baritone, and one is tenor.

If you are familiar at all with the part of the plant "Audrey II" in LSoH, you are aware that this calls for bass-baritone, with some nice big bass lines. Which (Chris will hopefully verify) the Vampire was well able to provide.

The role he got for this new production is the tenor part. It's a tenor part that also includes a rock-style song that makes use of *falsetto*.

The Vampire's voice hasn't 'settled' yet (in men that often doesn't happen until the early-to-mid twenties), and vocal chords are more prone to damage at that immature stage.

Something to keep an eye on.

2. The audition tested voice only, not movement or acting skills. And they didn't have time to chat or assess the auditioner's personality.

On that particular day we updated the V's resume, and took a quick snap of the kid's face per the audition notice. I just happened to take the shot from slightly above that day, and the angle made the V look a bit more cynical than is typical of him...

He also wore black jeans (Vampire uniform) and a black t-shirt with a stylized flaming skull on it (it's the logo for some band or other, the V just thought it looked cool).

This, combined with the hair and the bad mood he was in at the time (still tired from LSoH) obviously left the director with the impression that the V fit the role's "chief bad boy" description.

The problem being that the V is a klutz and self-confessed Geek. He is the true descendent of a long line of people who got beaten up on the playground. A lot.

They think they're getting James Dean, and instead they're getting Jim Carrey.

The Vampire loves playing the Bad Guy, but his experience is more along the lines of Snidely Whiplash than [pick just about any character played by Kiefer Sutherland].

This is going to be a Challenge. It's going to take a lot of training... and a lot of luck and support. Send your Good Acting vibes this way, please!

PS - Bravo for an excellent job as Nana in Velveteen Rabbit, LadyBlue... Encore!

Speak Quietly...

2006-05-28T21:47:00.000-07:00

... and carry a pointy stick. Or four pointy sticks, in my case, since I am working on fingerless gloves *and* socks at the moment. Pics will come later, I'm sure.

Of course, I use the word "working" extremely loosely, in the "I intend to do something with this yarn at some point before it soaks up enough of the humidity in the air to weigh more than I do" sense.

First of all, it is much too hot (in the early 90's) and much too muggy for my beloved wool to hold much appeal.

Which is just cruel, because I ignored the tortured screaming of my checking account a short while ago and went to the Shephard's Harvest Festival... and was adopted by a spindle and some very lovely roving (corriedale, corriedale and silk, and a bit of lovely baby merino in my favorite dark green-and-purple sort of colorway), and I really want to get at pretending that I have a clue what to do with my newfound treasures. (pics coming of these as well, I imagine)

Second of all, I really MEAN it when I request that you speak quietly. Even better, don't speak at all. Because I have an inner ear infection, and have spent the last couple days curled up in a fetal position, answering the anxious queries of my guys with vague assurances that I was sure I wasn't going to die - because I was relatively certain that I couldn't wobble all the way to the kitchen where they were ungallantly hiding the sharp knives. Or to the living room where lurks The Basket, which currently holds hostage the wool and projects in question.

The Weather Channel is holding out hope for a slight lowering of temps by midweek (middle 80's... if it's not too humid, we could at least *pretend* that approximates a reasonable wool-working atmosphere). I'm determinedly dosing my ear up with hydrogen peroxide+H2O - eew, I HATE blocked-up ears, even for a few minutes - just in case they are telling the truth. I want to be ready.

How does one prevent overtwist?

I Didn't Die

2006-05-22T22:50:00.000-07:00

The Pirate points out, not-too-gently, that my previous choice of subject matter might combine with more than two weeks of bloggish silence and lead people to be unnecessarily concerned for my health.

I did have a cold or flu sort of thingie for a while, and I've got more than my share of aches and pains and etc, but I am not at death's door by any means.

What I am is exhausted, and going through some sort of wheezing pouting period. In other words, I didn't have time to write for the past few weeks... until Monday, and I decided to just waste Monday by lolling around the house, knitting and reading and refusing to wash my hair.

So there.

This comes from volunteering (why do I do that?) and also from having no reasonable sense of boundaries whatsoever when it comes to Fixing Things.

So I spent the last four weeks or so in a rapidly escalating sense of Panic and Impending Doom, at least some of which was probably entirely unnecessary. And *that* led me to devote more and more of my time to Crisis Management, and no time at all to important things like... well, like knitting, or blogging, or getting some sort of handle on financial matters, or getting chores done.

What was I doing? Other than fretting, which I obviously excel at?

I was making plants.

Okay - I was painting and sewing and gluing and sewing and cutting and stuffing and sewing and pinning and sewing and running errands and sewing and hauling wood and sewing and painting some more and sewing some more. Did I mention sewing? My fingers are actually so calloused that I can't feel the wool under my fingers anymore when I knit, I've been sewing through tough materials (and pricking my fingers with darning needles) so much.

Part of this frenzy of activity was the making of set pieces and painting of sets, and part of this was costume making, but most of it was making plants.

Great big giant plants. The sort that are big enough to swallow people. Several people, in point of fact.

Because the Vampire was in a production of "Little Shop of Horrors". And he was the voice for the plant (in point of fact, there were four versions, each larger than the last). The show was big, complicated, and demanding. Not more than they could normally handle, and the kids were working hard - but the show was showing signs of being buried under an avalanche of health and other disasters (see post below). So even in the second (and final) week of the production run, we were still working on the plants. We might finish them next year.

But the kids were great.

I'll let Chris tell you more about how they did, and specifically about how the Vampire did... because you'll be less likely to dismiss her as being blinded by Stage Mommyness.

I won't tell you whether I bribed her or not.

Health Concerns

2006-05-04T21:16:00.000-07:00

In the last few weeks there's been a raft of serious health concerns turning up in my social circles among relatively young persons - we're talking about life-threatening conditions, as well as quality-of-life threatening ones. And I have to say it seems a bit ominous.

It doesn't seem to me as though it was so common for my parents, when they were my age, to have so many friends with tumors and expiring organs. I'm fairly certain that it wasn't so common for them to know so many people in their teens and twenties with such issues.

My mother began commenting on this well over a decade ago, when I and my friends and peers started having babies. Nearly everyone we knew had problems with their pregnancies and/or deliveries. Cancer, gestational diabetes, seriously premature labor, multiple miscarriages, anemia, hypertension, preeclampsia... and infant heart problems, lung problems, blood problems, immunity problems, growth problems, hormone problems, pituitary problems...

Let's not even get into the growing number of young children who are being diagnosed with, and often medicated for, what seems an exponentially growing multitude of neurological and behavioral disorders. It's too depressing.

Mom marvels that so many people are having these troubles. Her friends hadn't been similarly troubled during their pregnancies. Their babies nearly universally were just fine when they were born. Of course, the ones that weren't just fine probably weren't talked about as openly, but my mother is a sociable and sympathetic woman and her friends are close to her - when they have problems, my mom usually knows about them.

The discouraging thing for me is that I and my friends seem to be sharing the same types of health problems - and at nearly the same rate - with our parents, even though our parents are 20-30 years older than we are. Problems that used to be associated with advancing age are showing up at alarmingly rising rates among a younger and younger set of folks.

I'd love to report that 'healthy living' will protect people from experiencing these problems, but in the past week alone I've learned that several of the healthiest-living people I know have been diagnosed with various horrific cancers and heart problems - no amount of dark leafies and avoidance of hormones and antibiotics, no amount of excercise, no adherence to holistic practices seems to have been proof against this terrible tide of dis-ease. We are none of us safe... not even the youngest of us.

Finding cures is great. I'm all for it. But clearly we're doing something wrong. Isn't it at least as important to ferret out the sources of this tide as it is to discover the cures? Even if the answers to our questions turn out to be inconvenient and uncomfortable to hear?

Where should we start looking?

Stuff of the Day: So You Want To Fake A Foreign Accent...

Stubborn Blogspot Won't Wash Out

2006-05-02T21:09:00.000-07:00

Having a bit of trouble with Blogspot lately, so it's been a couple days.

The biggest thing you've missed is the 96th birthday of my grandmother, recently moved from Chicago in order to be closer to her family (that would be us, for instance).

from right to left: my mom, grandma, and the lovely (and loving) Mary Ann, who came all the way from Chicago to wish grandma a Happy Birthday

Here's a teeny sample of the festivities. Grandma enjoyed herself, everyone in the building enjoyed her cake, and we enjoyed her enjoying everything.

from right to left: the Vampire, birthday flowers, mom, and me

A good time was had by all.

Happy Birthday, Grandma...

Arrrr, Mateys

2006-04-27T10:01:00.000-07:00

Ah, yes, the magnetic pull of the genetic Green Stuff works its magic again. The Vampire has found a fair Colleen, and they are walking off into the sunset together to the strains of Flogging Molly.

It was clearly fate... they met, and discovered that they were wearing THE SAME EARRINGS (the Vampire sports a silver triskelle - an irish 3-point knotwork symbol - on one ear).

So all is temporarily well with the world. In celebration of which we provide the following Stuff of the Day, so that the Pirate will feel included (the poor man is Swedish, not a drop of Green to be seen):

You may get your Pirate Name here.

Here's mine, for your edification:

My pirate name is:

Captain Ethel Bonney

Even though there's no legal rank on a pirate ship, everyone recognizes you're the one in charge. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate's life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

Monday, Monday...

2006-04-24T07:36:00.000-07:00

I am just losing ground, here. Life is too hectic, there are too many screaming demands on my time. I keep thinking that things have GOT to calm down soon... and then it gets worse. And at this point I can't realistically see an end for at least another month.

And it's not interesting stuff, either... it's piddly-yet-frantic caretaking, chauffering, errand-running, fretting sort of family-oriented stuff. It's not anything that other people want to hear about (booooring...), and it's not that these demands are ever going to really end. It's not like people are going to stop getting older, stop getting ill and/or falling apart, stop needing groceries and dinners and clothes washed and errands run, stop having projects with which they need help, stop having birthdays that need celebratory food and time (what's with April?!?), stop needing to be educated towards their supposed college entrance, stop needing things fixed or cleaned or picked up or organized.

Sometimes I look at those PTA-type moms and wonder how the heck they manage things - what are they doing or not doing to make their lives look so manageable? I KNOW they are doing as much or more than I am doing, and they just sail gracefully through the chaos, tweaking here and organizing there, smiling and looking cool and competent, never forgetting to comb their hair or to bring the healthy lunches for the kids, always remembering everyone's names and birthdays. What part of my brain am I missing?

Maybe I left it in my knitting bag, which I forgot at the Vampire's voice lesson last week. I didn't forget my knitting, mind you - THAT I carried in my sweaty little paws and threw nonchalantly into the back seat of the car. (I wonder what crumbs and leaf bits it picked up there?) But the bag, with the Vampire's birthday card and my Day Runner (holding schedule AND all the phone numbers and addresses I need to function) and my knitting supplies (stitch counter, row counter, extra skeins, needle stash, etc), and other sundries? THAT I left in a house that is more than half an hour's drive away, too much driving time to add to our hectic schedule. So I have to make do for a week, until the next lesson time.

Which happens to be 25 minutes from now.

Gotta run. Late, as usual...

(As proof of my point, I tried to post this in the am, but Blogger was having none of it, and 7pm turned out to be the soonest I could post it. Everything just seems unnecessarily complicated and time consuming!)

Stuff of the Day: Astronauts At Play

Stuff of the Day

2006-04-20T06:12:00.000-07:00

I keep getting interesting little bits of odd information here and there, and I thought it might be fun to include them in my Blog. So I will add links at the bottom of some of these entries, under "Stuff of the Day" - follow them or not, according to your whim! They might be funny, icky, thought provoking, horrifying, interesting, or just plain odd. They might be stories, news items, tourist spots, wild theories, discoveries, games, suggestions, pictures or poems. Who knows? The only thing they are likely to have in common is that I think they were worth checking out, myself. Enjoy!

Today's Stuff of the Day: A Whale of a Tale

Whole Lot of Shaking Going On

2006-04-18T07:19:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy few days!

First of all, I spent DAYS getting the taxes done. For some reason my connection to my tax program was running v-e-r-y--s-l-o-w-l-y, so that each question took a couple minutes to process and get on to the next. That doesn't sound *that* bad, but there's hundreds of questions. Believe me, I did NOT want to spend that much time thinking about our finances!

I dreamt last night that I had woken up, and suddenly realized that I'd made a critical error on both sets (Federal and State) of forms, and that I somehow had to figure out how to fix it even though the deadline was about an hour away and my taxes had been filed a day and a half ago.

I don't feel all that rested right now...

My step-mother-in-law had emergency surgery on Thursday. Her appendix had died and gone gangrenous. So I was visiting her at the same time that I was doing my taxes and taxi-ing the Vampire back and forth to his rehearsals and classes, and dealing with several health problems of my own.

This, in combination with moving my grandmother into a nursing home in the last few weeks, has brought up a lot of issues for me. About aging and its effects on one's life. On the loss of independence as we get older/ill, and our growing dependence on others to survive as we age. On my own likely ability to cope with 'Empty Nest Syndrome' at some point in the next few years, given that the Vampire is an only child, homeschooled, and 'Special Needs'; in other words, given that he's been my nearly constant companion for the last 5 years, and that I've invested an extraordinary amount of time and energy and dedicated Fretting Time on him.

These issues will be taking up a great deal of my time and thinking in the coming weeks. I imagine it is good to ponder them once in a while, as to some degree they will apply to most of us (we hope - the alternative is even less knowable and for many, less desirable). But it's not a comfortable thing to dwell on these issues.

We are also entering into the 'panic stage' of the Theatrix production. The kids are enjoying their rehearsals, according to the Vampire, but the set crews are starting to realize exactly how demanding this particular production is going to be, and how much time is going to be required in order to get things done before the show is scheduled to actually begin. And we are having serious doubts that there are enough hours available to get us there. On Friday we were all there, working industriously until after 10pm, and by the end of the evening people's voices were octaves higher than they had been at the beginning of the work session. We can only hope that this is the 'Set Version' of 'Final Dress Rehearsal Syndrome', and that somehow everything will magically pull together on the first night of performance.

So the world is full of Challenges right now. Challenges to which I will rise brilliantly, of course. Right?

Right?

Update. Again.

2006-04-12T11:21:00.000-07:00

Okay, here it is. So far. If you look semi-carefully, you can see where the Pirate experienced his broken wood needles and changed to Addi Turbo's. And then you can see where I discovered that he was choking up on the needles so hard that the cable was threatening to separate from the needles, and we replaced them with Skacel straights. I think we have a winner... he loves the Skacels, which shows a great flexibility on his part, since he feared at first that he wouldn't be able to handle their extra length.

I think the Pirate has amazingly even gauge for a beginner - it's the needles that are changing the width of the scarf, not the Pirate per se.

Don't you think he's doing most excellently? I think he's amazing!

Friendship

2006-04-12T07:34:00.000-07:00

I swear I didn't set this up.

Note On Blog of Thanks

2006-04-11T15:07:00.000-07:00

The following post took literally nearly 15 hours of my real life to complete and publish. In the end I had to give up all font changes such as 'bold' and 'italics', because Blogger (why does Blogger hate me?) kept adding hundreds of nonsense html tags all over the post every time I added a photo or a font change or made any change in the text at all, and then refused to save or publish the post because of the nonsense html tags. I am THIS close to throwing this stupid computer across the room.

But I love my friends too much, and they deserve to see the following. Please excuse the time delay of two days in publishing.

Let Us Give A Blog Of Thanks

2006-04-11T15:06:00.000-07:00

I have undeservedly received a cartload of goodies from across town and across the world this month, and have neglected to give adequate thanks because of various family and personal situations largely beyond my control. But I have appreciated these gifts hugely, and want to give both gift and giver their due now.

I also shamefacedly admit that except for one semi-perishable item, I had managed to buy the treats promised for our Spring Exchange prior to weakly giving in to the aforesaid plague, but had NOT managed to mail your packages off. I obtained said item and packed everything up today, and will hie me to the Post Awful tomorrow morning promptish. Chris will get her package soon, but unfortunately the lovely Mrs. Pao and Peeve will probably receive theirs post-Easter. The contents are not Holiday Dependent, so hopefully their enjoyment will not be significantly diminished by my lack of organization and fortitude.

My humblest apologies to all my benefactors for my neglect.

And now I give to you my Blog of Thanks. Which goes like this:

To Chris, from whom all Chaos flows, I repeat my thanks and list here the highlights of her lovely package:

A fabulous row counter, which I badly needed for my Travel Everywhere Knitting Bag - Woohoo!!!

A lovely bottle of Aveda shampoo for sensitive skin - I wish I could tell you what-all that scent is, but I can't read the miniscule tan printing against its background of tan-colored shampoo. I think I might need reading glasses. I'd get depressed about being that old, but I can't because I'm busy sniffing my hair.

A box of Nut Thins (yay!) and an old empty box that used to have Nut Thins in it. Don't ask. It makes sense to Chris and I...

A tin of caffeinated mints of most strong and delectable flavor.

Cadbury eggs and assorted chocolates, which (luckily for my waistline) were fallen upon immediately by The Horde - I beat them back and did manage to steal away with the dark stuff, and ate it during the first week of Dogsitting at my folks (late at night, when The Horde were comatose). My favorite was the bar with the nuts and berries. Chris has such good taste...

Yummy-smelling lime cuticle cream by Burt's Bees, which is keeping the row counter company in the knitting bag.

A CD of awesome music compiled by Herself which, according to the Vampire, "Sounds like you, mom!" Very Cool.

A Cute Sheepy notepad. I am afraid that I did misuse one of the sheets a bit, as I used it to write a polite but very slightly miffy note to the person who has recently taken to parking in such a way as to block the paved entrance to our sidewalk. But I did stick it under their windshield wiper with the Sheep side out, so that the world could admire their wooly goodness.

This Very Darling Stress Sheep Keychain, which now rules over my keys and key hook. I pet it ALL THE TIME. I love my Stress Sheep. Look upon my Stress Sheep and Despair... because I KNOW you are wanting a Stress Sheep too, right this very now, but it's MINE!

I may have forgotten a thing or two; I apologize if I did.

---------------------

About a week later, I received this from Australia. I immediately got the Grue, and rudely kept poor Kellie waiting while I spent my time lolling about in bed (well, huddled shivering and sneezing in bed, actually, but you catch my drift). Woeful apologies and eternal gratitude to Peevish, who so kindly sent me:

How do we Americans manage to live without Tim Tams? I had to share, and I resented it. A LOT. Tim Tams rock.

The fruit candies were largely confiscated by the Vampire - I suspect that was Kellie's intention. I had to wrestle them away from him in order to take the picture. I got a roll for the Pirate and I to split, but only by using subterfuge ("Look!! Over there! A Distraction!!")

The chocolates and stitch markers (they may *say* wine glass markers, but it's all a trick to fool you. Anyone can see that they are stitch markers) are mine, mine, all mine...

Kellie also sent this absolutely luscious yarn. Any weirdness in the picture is purely the fault of the photographer; it certainly doesn't have anything to do with the yarn.

That green and blue superwash wool is slated for socks for the Pirate. He's been hovering over it ever since it came, pushing it toward me every time I sit still for a moment.

The textured purple variegated is earmarked for a hat. It's going to be gorgious.

The steel grey yarn is really soft and yummy, but there was no label - Kellie, what is it? I love it. I haven't quite decided what to do with it yet, but it's gonna be for ME.

That wonderful stuff at the lower left... oh, boy. The picture can't pick up the colorway at all, but it's absolutely my very favorite color combo in the world: dark, saturated greens and plums and fuschias. I'm in heaven. I have no idea what to do with it. I may just skein it up and drape it artistically across my Basket, pretending that it's a sort of Artsy decorative thing, so that I can take it down and just sort of fondle it and gloat over it whenever nobody is looking. My Precious....

--------------------

Last, but not at all least, I just got this package from the UK, and it has Sam written all over it. Cute little stickers, too! I haven't tried any of the goodies yet, but I adore Lindt chocolate, the biscuits/cookies look lovely, and the tea is so richly fragrant that you can smell it throughout the whole kitchen, even though we haven't opened the bag yet. I can't wait for tea time, so that I can have a bikkie and a cuppa!

Confessions: I hid the Lindt bars from the boys, except for the HUMONGOUS hazelnut bar, which they are going to split. They confiscated the little sugar-shelled eggs, with much appreciation. The Vampire ate the little Cadbury Creme eggs (he whined about it when I briefly snatched them out of his mitts long enough to include them in the photo). I'm keeping the two other little eggs for myself. The Lindt bunnies and eggs will hide until Easter, but I know they will be hugely appreciated when they emerge from their lair (no, Pirate, I am NOT going to tell where they are).

See those teensy little knitting needles? Aren't they cute? They are for knitting teensy little sweaters for the mice. I'll get right on that.

But that's not all.

The Pao Kitties sent these for The Cat.

Aren't they lovely? Isn't the mouse that scurries across the floor when you pull its tail out clever? Doesn't the Red & Green Mouse have the sweetest face ever? That green ball has a bell, and it rolls across our hardwood floors more smoothly than I've ever seen a cat ball do. The toys are wonderful!

The Cat ignored it all.

Because SHE was too busy with this:

That's right. The plain cotton string with which the paper was wrapped. She was entranced. She was enthralled. She killed it. Repeatedly. The String was Mighty, but The Cat triumphed.

(Don't worry, Pao Kitties; The Cat later discovered the joys of Red & Green Mouse, who is now lodged underneath my chair as I write. She'll come around...)

Another Update

2006-04-05T13:21:00.000-07:00

The Pirate has graciously consented to my showing off his progress so far.

For those of you who are non-knitters: have a cup of tea, talk amongst yourselves, stretch your legs. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled show in a moment.

For those of you who are knitters: Please tell the Pirate what you really think.

Note that I'm not trying to influence what you say... I am confident. Much more confident than the Pirate is, actually, because unfortunately *my* first knitting project has long ago been eaten by the sands of time, or dust bunnies, or something, so I cannot show it to him (he'd feel much better about his own skills if I could do so).

Aren't you jealous? Don't you wish he was yours?

Update

2006-04-04T22:48:00.000-07:00

The Pirate is knitting several rows per day, and is now producing only 1 mistake per 2 or 3 rows. We are VERY proud, especially as he is getting better and better at identifying errors quickly, so that we don't have to tink back more than a few stitches at most.

His main trouble is that he does knit very tightly, so that his main mistake tends to be that his needle slides down and he ends up knitting into the stitch below, and then drops the live stitch.

The Pirate asks how other beginning knitters manage if they do not have a resident Knitting Teacher hanging out to advise and assist them. I told him that most of us produce some very lumpy and raggedy items for the first few attempts... he, on the other hand, is repairing every mistake, so that his scarf is growing slowly but looking *very* nice.

Go, Team!

News At 11

2006-04-04T21:19:00.000-07:00

It is once again That Season in the Midwest, and this is a particularly bad year for the Pestilential Pernicious Potholes of Doom - or should that be Perpetuity?

Our current theory is that over the years/eons chunks of pavement have aggregated into clots so dense that they have actually sunk beneath the earth's crust. These Tarmetoids have grown over time into masses so concentrated and dense that they have actually developed their own individual gravitational fields, pulling more pavement from the streets above as the ground thaws sufficiently to release chunks of pavement from their protective layer of ice. In the Midwest the ground freezes and then thaws so often that these gravitational fields not only causes pavement to abandon the earth's surface in mass migrations, but also has been known to pull cars into their influence from as much as half a mile's distance. This effect is so powerful that commuters frequently arrive hours late to work, due to delays caused by having to be AirLifted from one of the PPPoD's that have developed overnight.

It is this phenomenon which has led to the famous Midwestern saying, "Potholes Suck."

Don't say we didn't warn you.

Splinter

2006-04-01T08:56:00.000-08:00

The Pirate has already run into one of the major issues I have with beautiful wood needles - one of his lovely palmwood needles has split at the tip, and is catching and tearing at his soft Malabrigo yarn.

This is frustrating, especially since we haven't been able to find the packaging (will the store take a return without it? we do have the receipt...), but it has forced him to 'make do' with a set of my Addi Turbo circulars, so it may be a blessing in disguise. His first reaction was to grouse and insist that he'd never get the hang of it, not enough support etc. But now that he's done a couple rows, he is grudgingly willing to continue using them for a while, "Just to see how they'll do."

I suspect that a great deal of this willingness to put up with them is that he wants to have an excuse to imitate Brenda Dayne's cool sound effect for Addi Turbo's every time he takes them out.

If he and the Vampire start using my Addi's as stand-ins for light sabres, I'm going to garotte them both with the nearest yarn (Schaeffer's Laurel should hold up well, I think)...

Stuff

2006-03-31T14:25:00.000-08:00

The Vampire put his Fritos in the refrigerator. On purpose. ???

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The bones in my skull have overlapped a bit more or something, and I now have a ridge down the center of my skull. So. Should I be learning Klingon and shaving my head?

Or should I just be worrying about brain shrinkage? Maybe I should stop putting my head in the dryer when I'm looking for missing socks...

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Who was God's role model?

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When I was little and we were visiting my grandparents, I used to pretend I was asleep when my folks came to get us ready to leave, just so that they would pick me up and hold me for those few seconds while they carried me downstairs. I'm unsure whether that is sweet, shamelessly manipulative, or just sad.

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I felt bad when the Vampire got too big for me to be physically able to carry him when he asked. I held him as long and as often as I could until then.

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I used to feel guilty when the Vampire got sick, because I always rather liked it when he was all dragged out; it was the only time in his life (including infancy) that he wanted to cuddle.

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The Vampire and I always race to be first to get to those thin skims of ice that form over puddles. We each want to be the one to break the ice... even though we are both as likely as not going to end up ankle-deep in muddy icy water, and then squelching through the rest of the day in one soaked shoe and sock.

The Vampire is faster, but I am sneakier, and more treacherous. I lure him towards the deeper puddles.

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I made a big deal about The Cat being the Pirate's pet, and giving her to him as a Father's Day present. The predictable result is that the cat clearly sees herself as primarily my companion, but guess who changes the litter box?

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There wasn't any real point to this blog entry at all, but you still read it. Why?

Forward, Brave Froggers

2006-03-30T21:29:00.000-08:00

The Pirate originally was doggedly knitting away on a 36-stitch garter stitch scarf, but after knitting nearly two inches of woolly goodness, he got very frustrated with the number of mistakes he was making.

Lesser Mortals would have decided to give up (the Vampire, for instance, did exactly that a few years back), but although the Pirate decided to frog the entire project, he did not do this with Giving Up in mind. No, the Pirate is made of sterner stuff. He merely frogged the project in order to start over, his goal being that of perfecting his product and his design - he had decided on a slightly narrower and longer scarf.

He has improved, in a few short days, both in speed and in decreasing his number of errors, so that in two days he has knit past the point of frogged yarn and is now knitting up entirely virgin yarn. Woohoo!

Now, I know that you would like to see a pic of his progress, and I promise to encourage him to offer up examples as he goes along. But he still is at that beginning stage in which much of his time is spent in frustration with his own inability to live up to his perfectionistic standards, and he doesn't feel that a two-inch-long sample is something worth bragging about. I would argue the point, but I've known the Pirate for long enough to recognize when he's set his booted heels into the ground... he's not going to budge on this one. We'll have to wait for a while.

On the bright side, while he is still unnecessarily harsh on himself as a student knitter, the Pirate *has* volunteered that he has caught brief flashing glimpses of what we knitters see in the process: "I can sort of see that Zen thing you talk about..."

I think that's Progress, don't you?

In Stitches

2006-03-28T20:33:00.000-08:00

The Pirate has my undying admiration (yes, that's a pun, go ahead and groan - we've obviously been spending too much time with hand-painted yarn around here).

Having struggled through a somewhat truncated gauge swatch of sorts, he has now embarked upon the official Knitting Of the Scarf. Without any pressure from me (other than my apparently annoying optimism and chirpiness on the subject of how well he is doing, when he is determined to gloomily reflect on every tiny flaw as being a glaring example of his total inadequacy as a knitter) he has been doggedly *and voluntarily* taking up his pointy sticks every day and adding a row or two. His speed has increased markedly in just a week, and his only real struggle so far has been the occasional accidental knit-in-the-stitch-below.

Which I think is pretty darned impressive. But he won't take my word for it.

So knitters and experienced observers of knitters: Am I leading the Pirate down the garden path, and is he right in thinking that having trouble with a stitch or two every other row is a sure sign of Knitting Doom? Or do you agree with me, and think that he's doing a great job for a first-week knitter?

Home From Foreign Shores

2006-03-27T22:11:00.000-08:00

... Or, to be more exact, home from a few miles across town.

We are finally back (again) from sitting the Folks' Little Dawg, and the Folks are home safely from their rushed packing up of my grandmother's Chicago household. We now have:

~A couple hours' recording of the World Poker Tour

~5 hours' recording of STNG

~Two end tables

~A basket of dishes... no, two. Make that three (a matched and largely unbroken dining set! Woohoo! Wait... what are these? Fruit bowls? Egg cups???!!!! TWO matching teapots! Hmmm, starting to realize I got my 'collecting stuff' gene from *both* sides of the family).

~Note that included in that last para are several baskets (if you are a knitter, you know why baskets would be desirable... although now The Basket may take vengeance on me, if it decides to indulge in a territorial showdown of some sort)

~Stainless silverware, and theoretically more to come.

~Some photos and other small memorabilia

And a whole lot of things to be done around the house that we weren't doing while playing with the dawgie and watching cable channels and attending various dramatic functions and visiting nursing homes and running errands and buying stuff at IKEA.

The first thing we did when we got home was unearth the Chicken Wings of Doom that had lodged cleverly in a bottom corner of the fridge and had been lurking invisibly behind a number of innocent-looking condiment jars, producing the most nasty pong imaginable. After that we replaced the Vampire's ages-old mattress with a new foam one from IKEA (it unfortunately has turned out to be several inches shorter than his bed, but he really likes the comfort, so he may just decide to put up with the length deficit).

The next thing we did was sit on the floor and put together the little teeny desk-on-casters from which I am now typing as we speak. The Pirate and I were very pleased with ourselves, indeed - we actually got it done correctly, without snarling at each other, without *too* much swearing, AND THE PIRATE READ THE INSTRUCTIONS. And it didn't even truly put a serious dent in his self-concept as a Man (or, more importantly, as a Guy).

You'd think we were Grown Ups, or something.

Which of course was a bit scary, so we made up for it by playing video games and watching a couple episodes of 'Monk'.

All better now....

Progress, Slow But Steady

2006-03-22T07:41:00.000-08:00

The Pirate learned a little bit about reading knit fabric yesterday, and can reliably identify a knit stitch and a purl stitch. When he asked about garter stitch and stockinette stitch he got a bit confused... I had trouble explaining adequately that we might call it 'stitch', but what we mean is stitch pattern.

We hope to get to the mechanics of actually producing a knit stitch today, and hopefully that will help to clear things up somewhat.

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The house is full of smoke right now, but that's a good thing, because it is the by-product of the Pirate's activities in the kitchen: he fried up some very nice extra thick bacon that was just the right combination of chewy and crispy, he sauteed up a bunch of onion and garlic and mushrooms and other mixed veg, he added the veg mix to some nice eggs, added cheese, stuffed the results into a batch of tortillas, and is currently frying them up nice and crispy. Topped with our favorite salsa (or barbeque sauce, if one is the Vampire) and sour cream, this is Heaven, and Heaven is smokey. Live with it.

A Report On Our Progress In Taking Over The World

2006-03-21T08:33:00.000-08:00

... starting where Charity starts. That is: At Home.

The Pirate was reluctantly dragged through the nearest local yarn store this past Sunday. So first of all we want to acknowledge his courage in facing a store full of arcane items of dubious purpose and women wielding pointy sticks.

Further, he not only resisted his Inner Cheapskate in choosing yarn (Malabrigo... hey, great taste, PirateDear!), but also eyed the thrifty grey plastic needles AND THEN CHOSE THE PRETTY LAUREL HILL PALMWOOD NEEDLES, even though they cost twice as much.

Don't get me wrong. He complained bitterly about the cost afterwards and threatened to return everything. He would never complain about it if I bought these things for myself, mind you... it's the realization that *he* had indulged himself so unnecessarily that brought on this fit of ricidivistic penny pinching. But in spite of his doubts, he has reluctantly agreed to stick to his guns and use the items originally purchased. I think it's something about my repeated paeans on the 'sensual' pleasures of knitting that got him... he's such a *guy*!

So here we are, poised on the brink of casting on, pointy sticks in hand. He is determined... not to *like* knitting, he doesn't promise that, but to at least give it enough of a go that he can at dimly understand a bit of what I'm talking about when I start to rant on ad nauseum about whatever I'm struggling over on my Addi Turbo's.

What brought him to this pass? Well you might ask!

Two things:

One is that last year I took out two (count them, two!) books about Football, and tried to memorize enough of the contents to understand something of what was happening on the Tube every Sunday and Monday night during The Season. The Pirate is nothing if not fair, and he appreciated my efforts.

The other is Brenda Dayne and her charming knitting podcast, Cast-On. Every Saturday night I leave the computer wheezing over the downloading of the latest episode, and every Sunday morning as the Pirate works away at his World Famous Omelletes Du Jour, I cheerfully play Cast-On at full blast while fiddling away at either my knitting or my email. Evidently it's nearly impossible to listen to Brenda without being infected with a desperate urge to fiddle with sticks and wool. I think it's the new sound-effect for Addi Turbo's that finally pushed him over the edge, although the Pirate insists it's the music.

Either way, we're on the way. The whole Gauge Swatch concept promises to be a hurdle - he's already muttering darkly about frogs and devious women - but I am told that in the next two days he feels he will be ready to take wool in hand.

I'm very proud of him.

One more convert on the road to World Domination. You're next...

Inadequate Thanks

2006-03-21T07:02:00.000-08:00

Oh, oh, oh... I just opened a mysterious package I found waiting for me on the porch, and I WISH I could post a pic or at least a few gushing descriptions of what I found nestled within that box!

Unfortunately, to do so would probably ruin the surprise for two other people who are likely to read this blog, so I must heroically resist the temptation for the moment.

But I must say that they are two lucky gals, to be looking forward to such spectacular goodies... Chris is the best Easter Bunny ever!!

Thanks Uber Muchly, Sister-In-Pointy-Sticks! That is a real Day Brightener... I feel I have the energy now to face the rest of the week! :D

Little Bit of This, Little Bit of That...

2006-03-18T08:52:00.000-08:00

Yee Gawds (don't you love the way I use spelling to inadequately 'disguise' the fact that I am either a blasphemer or a heathen pagan wretch? you guess which...), but my car is UGLY! Being parked on a busy street during a major Meltdown is NOT a good idea. Obviously they salted my street... and since they knew that this snow/ice was all going to melt fast, I am taking that nice coating of sodium as a personal assault.

Not only that, but someone took a bit of Private Time in the Target parking lot in order to thoughtfully slam a few more dents in the tissue-paper-like sides of my car. I really appreciate that. You know, it's not like I *need* it to be Car Shaped. A little geometric randomness is probably good for the eyesight, or creativity, or something. It makes my car a little more Organic looking. Which is probably why that guy ran the red light in order to nearly kill me and the Vampire as we crossed Snelling the other day... he thought we were a big purple cabbage, and was seized with a craving for cole slaw.

I don't need that coating of paint, anyway. Rust is more environmentally friendly, I'm sure.

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Really, I'm not entirely sure why the house and its current inhabitants are still in existance. From the sheer mass of dust I keep finding (well, 'finding' might not be the term I'm looking for... 'being ambushed by' might be more accurate, but even that doesn't fully convey the sort of Buried By Avalanche experience I've been having lately; I'm starting to identify my vacuum cleaner when asked if we store any weapons in our home), I can't help but wonder that there's anything *left* to make dust out of. Surely we should have been able to build a new planet out of the dust bu... err, dust elephants that I've been capturing and ejecting from the house over the past year or so. Is it just recycled? Is it sneaking back in under the door at night? If I left little offerings of food and blankets and maybe a space heater, would it all stay outside in the fresh air and leave us alone?

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I've got something Mrs. Pao doesn't have. But she will, sometime soon. Hee...

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Looking at teenaged girls from the other side of the fence, so to speak, I want to apologize to every guy in the world. I'm really, really sorry. Really. I've tried to make up for it by not producing any more of them. I know it's an inadequate gesture, but it's the best I can do.

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Podcasts Rock. Knitting Podcasts Rule.

Oooo, What A Little Sunshine Can Doooo...

2006-03-17T12:41:00.000-08:00

Update:

So. A little more snow, a little more sun, and this is what we've got.

That was then...

This is now.

Yuck.

Weird Parental Moments

2006-03-17T04:27:00.000-08:00

The Vampire was the highest soprano in the large Minnesota Boychoir during his two-and-a-half-year stint there, so it was a huge shock to his system when he quite suddenly became a low baritone on his 11th birthday (more or less). He still hasn't entirely recovered his full octave spread, struggling with what is largely a psychological block regarding his upper range... still, his voice is quite pleasant and a bit unusual, and has a lovely timbre in the lower baritone/bass notes. At nearly sixteen, he's had five years to come to terms with the new voice, even though he says he hears something more like a highish tenor in his head.

We had the first read-through/sing-through for "Little Shop of Horrors" this past week, and to my surprise nearly the entire roomful of jaws dropped when the Vampire sang "Audrey vs. Audrey". A lot of the parents/staff turned wide eyes to me and mouthed "Oh. My. Gawd..." And afterwards several nice middle aged ladies slipped up to me and said, "We'd never thought of him as *sexy* before..."

Okay, there's a Weird Parental Moment!

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Evidently people look at the Vampire, they hear what he *says*... and never notice The Voice.

Well, I suppose people get distracted by the kid himself - he's one of your geeky, sweet, theatrically silly, easy-going sorts of teens (probably not all that common, actually), rather than one of your smoldering, athletic, moody, James Dean types. You know; the kind of Nice Boy that parents like a lot more than the girls usually do. Like Earth, the Vampire can be easily labeled "Mostly Harmless".

But now at this rehearsal they were listening instead of watching, because they knew that in the play he is going to be backstage, singing into a microphone. As he stepped up to the piano they were imagining the Plant instead of the Vampire.

What they heard was a combination of Luther Vandross, Barry White, and... I don't know, something angry, Morrison, perhaps. Smooth, coaxing, seductive, then forceful, then murderous... ending with the kid's favorite, his Specialty: the gloating, threatening, insane laughter.

It's the Vampire's dream to play Sweeney Todd, or Jekyll & Hyde.

Of course, to me it's still My Boy. He sounds like he always sounds when he's singing in his room. Of course he sounds good, he always sounds good. I'm simultaneously proud, surprised, and a bit taken aback by the reaction of the rest of the cast and crew, the parents. I am, perhaps, indulging in my own type of blindness - as a mother it's easy to think of my child as talented, and clever (and lazy, and disorganized...). It's no great stretch to notice that he has a great voice.

But sexy?

Maybe I'd better plug my ears when he starts actually performing behind the curtain.

La la la la la...

Toona Face

2006-03-16T10:04:00.000-08:00

Today I got the mayo out first. It didn't matter. As soon as the mayo came out, there she was, with the "I want my tuna can NOW!!!!!" voice firmly in evidence.

Yup, it's Tuna Face...

"Toona?"

Life Without Internet Access

2006-03-16T06:31:00.000-08:00

I've been living without Internet access and without Pirate access for quite a while, and... well, I'm sure it's not quite as bad as having one's limbs cut off, but one certainly does feel isolated!

And it may happen again at the end of this week, as I have to go back to the folks' place to sit the dog and watch the house again. I hope you will be patient with me, and not feel neglected enough to desert me entirely. Believe me, I am truly missing you all!!

Here's some pics to show you what we've been up to in MN - these were taken on Tuesday, when much of Sunday/Monday's snowfall had already melted. It's been snowing all Wednesday night and so far today it is still falling at a pretty good pace, so tomorrow I'll try to give you some comparison photos.... although it's warm, so this stuff will probably melt quickly. The snow is very wet, so although it doesn't look that thick, it's very heavy:

This is my folks' front yard, with our car in the driveway. That blob there is *not* a bush, it's a tree that has been bent double by the weight of the snow.

These are some trees in my folks' front yard. They are huge. Aren't they pretty?

This is the folks' back yard. The tree on the left actually split from the weight on that branch. That big branch on the right is also broken from the snow-weight, although it's still hanging from the tree. If you look closely, you can see a smaller branch that broke off early in the snowstorm (there was a lot of wind for part of it) and then got buried.

Here's our car right now, on my street. The snowflakes are too small and fast to register on my camera, but believe me, it's still coming down.

That ends our tour for now.

We will update tomorrow!

Life, Interrupted

2006-03-09T16:11:00.000-08:00

Entries are going to be spotty for a while, and I beg my Gentle Readers' pardon both in advance and otherwise, and ask for your indulgence. This is due to several sets of circumstances converging inconveniently, among which are:

The Vampire's schedule has suddenly become exceedingly busy and driving-intensive. Along with Fencing, Voice, Economics and Composition classes, he also has Schools On Stage (an excellent month-long program through the Guthrie) and rehearsals for the musical "Little Shop of Horrors", in which show he is performing as the voice of Audrey II, the cannibalistic plant/alien. As well as serving as general factotum and chauffeur, I have volunteered in several capacities for the production, and will be kept pretty darned busy both during and outside of rehearsal.

My grandmother, who currently resides in Chicago, will have to be moved to Minnesota and set up in a nursing home at the beginning of next week. This process will be both physically and emotionally taxing for her, as her health is exceedingly frail and her understanding largely unreliable at this point. There are various responsibilities that I hope to fulfill during this process, both here and in Chicago, which I expect will be time consuming and will take me away from home (and computer access) for extended periods of time.

I have to do our taxes.

We've been dealing with delicate life/emotional issues that have cropped up in the Vampire's life in the last couple weeks, and this has required a significant investment of emotional energy and of time. I'd like to add that the Vampire has handled these issues with a fair amount of grace and maturity, and I am proud to be his mother.

Hopefully these issues will resolve in part during the course of the next month, although "Little Shop of Horrors" will no doubt become more and more time consuming as Performance Time draws near. It's going to be great, though. If you live in the Twin Cities, keep an eye on the Theatrix link in my sidebar - you should definitely attend!

100 Things About Me Part III

2006-03-06T07:05:00.000-08:00

51. My great-grandmother, my grandmother, and two of my cousins share with me the same mole in the same place, under the same earlobe.

52. My favorite dish is one that hardly anybody else would eat if they knew what was in it.

53. I sometimes bring it to Pot Lucks, and it's usually the first thing to disappear.

54. This generally makes me feel pretty smug.

55. I am insane about Christmas, as is my mom, and we've built up so many 'fun traditions' around it that doing them all takes up nearly the entire month of December. We're starting to have trouble scheduling them all in. But we try really hard. Because, you know, it's Christmas.

56. We've gone to the Dayton's Christmas display thingie every year since the very first one (that's over 40 years), and finished our trip with lunch at the Oak Room. My mom missed a couple when she was living in the wilds of Northern Scotland, but I haven't missed a single one. I cried this past winter when they started positing that new owner Macy's might stop providing one or the other or both. I'm REALLY attached to my Christmas traditions.

57. I have Scheuermann's Kyphosis.

58. And arthritis. If you've been paying attention so far, yeah, physically I'm a mess.

59. Mostly it doesn't bother me too much - you can adjust to more than you'd think, really. And there are certain gifts that come with not knowing how much more 'functional' time you've got. You tend to appreciate the time you have *now* more.

60. People amaze me on a constant basis. There are quiet heroes all around us, walking around looking perfectly normal - but if we knew most people's stories, we'd be amazed and impressed by nearly everyone we met.

61. You'd probably amaze me, too.

62. My taste in music is even more eclectic than my taste in books. But I don't like Rap or Heavy Metal or that dissonant sort of orchestral stuff.

63. For the most part, I don't like abstract art, either.

64. I adore museums of almost any sort.

65. Which makes sense, since they are great big collections of Stuff that I don't have to find shelving space or box space for.

66. Informational Stuff as well as Physical Object Stuff. I love it all. Museums Rock.

67. At one point or another, I've learned at least a small amount of French, Hebrew, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese.

68. The only thing I've retained is a small amount of French, the words to Havah Nagilah, the words of blessing "Boruch ato adonoi eloheinu melech ho-olam", and how to say 'please', 'thank you', 'hello' and 'goodbye' in everything.

69. In spite of being foreign-language-impaired, I've been paid to translate French and Japanese into English. Go figure.

70. I grew up Catholic.

71. My beliefs are unorthodox and highly individual now.

72. That doesn't surprise you, does it?

73. I didn't think so.

74. I hate extremism, and in response to an extreme statement of any sort I will frequently run out to the opposite end of an argument and jump up and down on it as emphatically as possible, even if I don't believe in it at all. I'm a stinker that way.

75. As I get older I give in to that impulse less often, because in reality it's a waste of time - extremists are rarely good listeners or deep thinkers. For some reason they rarely thank me for (publicly) trashing/forcing them to defend the foundations of their assumptions. Go figure.

100 Things About Me Part II

2006-03-03T22:53:00.000-08:00

26. I've taken lessons in Tap, Ballet, Folk, Ballroom, and Belly dancing.

27. I am on the map. Literally. "Lost Girl Trail" That's me!

28. Although I earned the Title early on, I have continued to improve on my Getting Lost skills, and will probably do so until I can no longer propel myself independently. I expect that the last thing I do in life will be to disappear altogether while heading for the nearest bathroom. Nobody will be surprised.

29. When I go to any family gathering, the first thing they ALWAYS say is, "Did you find us okay? Did you get lost?" They usually say this with concern in their voices. This all comes from having had long experience of me.

30. I am head driver and navigator for my family.

31. I went to Europe for 3 months and always knew exactly where we were, where we were going, and how to get there, even though I rarely used maps.

32. I dropped out of high school on principle.

33. I was accepted by the University of Minnesota without my having graduated from high school or gotten my GED.

34. I once waited on a 3-person table at a pizza place and made them wait for an hour, dropped their first pizza on the floor, gave them the wrong pizza afterwards, spilled beer on one of them... and they gave me a $20 tip.

35. The first thing I ever said to my husband: "Good God, you're completely illiterate!"

36. I love seafood.

37. Except oysters.

38. But I love Oyster Stew.

39. I am allergic to the sun.

40. And possibly myself.

41. I've had a poltergeist (or something similar) since I was 20.

42. We went through a couple years where we hardly ever got our phone calls, because it loved to turn off the phone ringer. We tried three different phones, but it didn't help. It stopped when we moved... but then it just found new amusements.

43. The current amusement is dropping random small items loudly onto the floor just after someone leaves the room. Often the item dropped was not in that room in the first place.

44. This doesn't even seem weird any more.

45. I would think I was hallucinating about this, but several roommates have experienced it - including the Pirate, who is not in the least prone to flights of imagination.

46. I laughed at the end of "Love Story"

47. I think Baked Beans smell great, but I think they are awful. I think it's the texture.

48. I hate Summer.

49. I love fireflies.

50. When my husband broke his arm and was tranked up in the hospital, prepped for surgery and completely helpless, I played 'This Little Piggy' on his toes.

100 Things About Me Part I

2006-03-01T07:30:00.000-08:00

I have finished the one sock, and put it on... and decided that I love the yarn but hate the sock. I'm going to frog the entire thing and do something else with the yarn. Because I can. So there.

I don't know if I will be able to accomplish this meme, so I'm going to take it a bit at a time. Maybe I'm too boring to have 100 things to tell?

Here goes!

100 Things About Me

1. I am a collector. I collect stuff.

2. I also collect hobbies.

3. I collect Useless Bits of Knowledge, too.

4. Basically, if I were rich I'd build something like House On the Rock.

5. I love House on the Rock.

6. I had cancer during my pregnancy with the Vampire, and was pretty much house/bed-bound during much of the pregnancy.

7. I had 5 miscarriages after that, the last of which was in the beginning of the 2nd trimester. After that we decided we must have done it right the first time.

8. I'm a really good cook, even though I don't particularly enjoy cooking.

9. I do, however, enjoy reading recipes and collecting cook books.

10. I am incredibly picky.

11. I'm pretty much a pain in the ass about that, actually.

12. I'm okay with being a pain in the ass.

13. I homeschool the Vampire.

14. I have really wide feet. Really wide. Reeeeally w-i-d-e.

15. I have a knitting book that is worth $250 if you 'buy it now' on eBay. It's huge and I rarely use it, but I seem to be unable to bring myself to get rid of it. What if I need it later?

16. I have a copy of 'Lord of the Rings' that is worth nearly $1,000. Priceless in sentimental value. I'm keeping it.

17. I have in my lifetime had cats, gerbils, hamsters, turtles, fish of various sorts, snakes, and rats as pets. I've never had a dog.

18. I used to have a beautiful lute. The owner of the store that was selling it on consignment stole it when he sold the store.

19. I actually knew how to play the lute at one time, but not terribly well.

20. I also know how to play the flute, recorder, oboe, piccolo, and djembe (African drum).

21. I have no clue how to play the piano.

22. I am double jointed.

23. I once got a toy rabbit for the Vampire, then put it on a shelf and didn't give it to him because it was too cute to let him get it all grubby.

24. It's still sitting there.

25. I have Benign/Familial Tremor in my hands, and it's gradually getting worse. I drop things a lot. It keeps me from doing the arts/crafts that I used to do. It sucks. But I can still knit.

First Love: The Fall

2006-02-28T04:58:00.000-08:00

Perspective is an interesting thing. As you get further and further away from an object, other items get obscured or revealed. The object itself often seems less and less significant in comparison to others that suddenly are revealed in the foreground. Sometimes the object disappears from view altogether, at other times it lingers there in the background; no longer the focus of attention, but still a part of what makes the view uniquely itself.

In some ways it is hard for me, with 30 years of added distance and changed perspective, to remember clearly what First Love was like. In others - well, it perhaps does not seem like yesterday, but at least last week...

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I didn't go through the crushes and vicissitudes of the usual High School Life Romantic. Like my mother before me, I had One Great Love during my entire high school career, and for my first year of college. I had every intention (as did my great love) of getting married when our college years were done, of moving somewhere new and exciting, of forging a life together. I believed in this future with a near religious fervor. Romeo and Juliette had nothing on us - we were the Real Thing.

Of COURSE we were. We were young, we were attractive, we had interests in common. We were clever, talented, idealistic and passionate. He was ambitious and sharp. I was creative and tender. We shared a reasonable number of values, and weren't overly offended where there wasn't overlap. We shared and understood certain traumas in each other's lives. We had compatible senses of humor and esthetics, and a shared vision of the future. We had an amusing yet romantic tale of our first encounter with which to regale our future grandchildren: we met as participants in our local Renaissance Fair - I bedecked in velvet gown and crowned with flowers, he tiddly on mead and wearing tights. He declared his intention of marrying me on that first day. It was meant to be. What cloud could there possibly be on the horizon of our life together?

I don't know which of us was more surprised and appalled when I found myself telling him that I loved him but now realized that I could never *live* with him and be happy.

It was a slow-developing realization for me, that love did not necessarily equate with happiness. It had never occurred to me in those years of First Love that there were things that I could not share with this lovely young man, and that trying to keep those parts of my life separate would eventually create a rift between us that could not be bridged adequately. It had never occurred to me that very small differences in visions for the future could end up looming large in the Big Picture when one started to look at just how long the expanse of one's adult lifetime could be.

Love isn't necessarily *enough*.

I think that has been the hardest lesson I've ever had to learn. It's certainly one that I keep having to relearn, to my sorrow, over and over again. Our culture is, in spite of what politically minded folks would have us believe, all about the redemptive power of Love. We believe, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, that Love Conquers All. Romantic Love, Maternal Love, the Love of Family, Platonic Love, Love of Mankind... "Love is all you need," right?

Right?

The realization that love *isn't* all we need dawned on my First Love and I at nearly the same moment, although I had crept up to it slowly, with trepidation, while he had it thrust upon him suddenly and unawares. I handed him the Apple and watched him as he bit, saw the agony as it rose in his eyes.

Being Eve *sucks*.

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I don't, at this moment, even armed with whatever wisdom the perspective of thirty years of extra living affords me, presume to judge which sort of pain is worse.

To be the person who voluntarily ends a passage of True Love is like being caught in the Press... you feel each stone as it is piled atop you, you feel each moment of damage as it is happening, you see the agonizing end long before it's upon you and yet feel helpless to prevent it. It's a dark and messy thing, made worse by the sneaking suspicion that the person who is piling the stones might be your own self.

To be the person on whom the end of True Love is inflicted is a cleaner thing, a stabbing blow to the heart rather than a slow crushing. To many the death seems unexpected, a betrayer's attack that may have been presaged in any number of ways but whose signals we have somehow missed or ignored. There may be a certain protective quality to the shock we experience at first. But the pain is searing and the disillusionment overwhelming.

Either way, if you live through the experience there are lasting scars.

I know now that the scars are part of life, that they are necessary lessons learned, that in the end they make us deeper, more understanding, wiser people. I know now that strength comes from the testing of our weaknesses, that pain does end and joy begin again. I know that love, like a pair of shoes, can be brighter and more tempting when new and untried, but is much more comfortable and durable when worn and scuffed and tested. I know my grandmother was right when she repeated her panacea, "This, too, shall pass."

I didn't know it then, when I was Eve. My son doesn't know it now, as he faces his own Eve. It's a gift that comes with perspective, which is something that is hard-won, but which comes to everyone with time. After we survive the Fall.

I hope we survive the Fall.

This, too, shall pass...

KNITTER DOWN!!!!

2006-02-26T10:43:00.000-08:00

"Ooooh, that hurt!! What happened there, Peggy?"

"Well, Dick... this is really tragic. The contestant obviously was visibly shaken by that horrible and debilitating accident that occurred right in front of her just a moment ago. She let herself get distracted just enough that she didn't notice when she dropped a stitch during that K3tog until a few rows above it. By then it was too late, Dick... the stitch had dropped down enough rows to unravel those 4 yarnovers, and after that there was just no recovery possible. You can see that she is putting a brave face on it, and is going on to finish the other sock on the needles. Truly a determined competitor, but there just won't be enough time to make up the lost rows in this competition. I'm afraid that medaling is out of reach for her."

"Well, Peggy, that's a real shame. You hate to see such a promising knitter lose the gold just when it seems within reach like that. What a disappointing finish for this knitlete!"

"Yes, Dick, you can hear and see the disappointment of the audience, they were really pulling for her."

"Well, you have to give her credit, she's really put her heart into this competition. I think we'll be seeing her again in the future, and hopefully we can expect great things. What do you think, Peggy?"

"I think you'd better get your hand off my knee, Dick."

"Well, that's it for this Olympic reporter..."

lasst Menagerie (GM#7)

2006-02-25T13:59:00.000-08:00

Did you miss me?

Workload and imminent crises have kept me away... I will try to keep up now, but there is at least one more bump in the road coming midweek, and I can't promise absolute consistency. Bear with me, if you can. Thanks!

In the meantime, here are the last few of the glass pieces I intend to display here. They are the best, for one reason or another. Two are Steve's. One is... well, guess!

Isn't he cute? Extra points to the senior members who remember what record album he's from!

It's really really hard to get the human form at all recognizable in lampwork/glass. Isn't this amazing?

Notice the kink in the tail, the eyes that are cockeyed, and the feet that do not all meet the ground? Guess who did this... Ta-dah!

Bookishness

2006-02-22T20:29:00.000-08:00

Being snowed under with work (yay!), I don't have time for much, so I'm using the Book Meme currently making the rounds to cheat my way through today's entry.

Actually, my first reaction to the list was, "This is it? It's awfully short!"

Well, I survived middle school by burying myself in books, and spent a time as a bookstore owner, so I guess no surprise there.

Reading the list, it seems very strongly slanted in certain directions/genres. And it seems somewhat unfair that certain authors have *two* entries, especially as the entries are in the same genre (and even the same series). So I don't know how much the meme really reveals about our reading habits... there are many genres that are either underrepresented or not represented at all, some of which I happen to read, for instance. But it's a fun excercise, nonetheless.

Anyway:

Meme instructions: Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you've read, italicize the ones you might read, cross out the ones you won't, underline the ones on your book shelf, and place parentheses around the ones you've never even heard of.

(in mine I left the ones I haven't read a bit darker, as the bold didn't show up too clearly... the reason "The DaVinci Code" is bright but not bolded is because I am reading it now, so I've read *part* of it, but not all)

The DaVinci Code - Dan Brown
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J. K. Rowling
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story - George Orwell
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
1984 - George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J. K. Rowling
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
(The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold)
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
Angels and Demons - Dan Brown
Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
Neuromancer - William Gibson
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Good Omens - Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
Atonement - Ian McEwan
The Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Dune - Frank Herbert

Glass Menagerie #6

2006-02-21T11:27:00.000-08:00

The scorpion was acquired by the Vampire on the Island of Murano in Venice, Italy - which is famous for glassworking of all sorts. Note the little eyes peering up above the claws. Very... Vampire-like. (I mean that in the best possible way, of course)

The dragon, of course, is Steve's... I think the expression is priceless!

First Knitting Story

2006-02-20T14:22:00.000-08:00

My first exposure to knitting occurred when I was around 9 years old, and it didn't really occur to me until long afterwards how truly extraordinary it was.

When I was 9 we moved from the home I'd always known, a duplex in the heart of inner city Minneapolis, out into the southern suburbs. For many reasons, not the least of which was a crippling shyness and sense of fatalism on my part, I did not do well in my new social environment. My sister, for very different reasons, was also struggling socially, and evidently our school librarian noticed, and contacted my mother with an idea that was actually rather brilliant; she knew of a gentleman in a nearby nursing home who had no family to visit him, and he was becoming very depressed and lonely. Would we be willing to visit the man and give him a bit of company every week?

My sister jumped at the chance, and I was willing to go along, so that weekend my mother drove us to the nursing home. My sister settled happily down to chat with the elderly gentleman, but it was soon clear that there wasn't much need for me as a silent third wheel, and I wandered out of the room and made my way hesitantly down the hallway.

Eventually I was drawn to a room that, unlike the others, was completely unlit... yet I could see that someone was sitting up in the bed there, quiet and yet seemingly alert. When I approached the door I must have made some little noise, and the occupant cheerfully greeted me and asked me to join her.

Sitting in the dark was a lovely elderly lady with shining white hair and a soft accented voice. Her name was Hanna, and as I sat at the foot of her bed she told me about her life. How she traveled on a boat from Sweden as a girl with her parents. How she met her husband and raised her daughter. How both were now gone, one to old age and illness, the other to a car accident. She told me about her home and her friends and her childhood.

As she spoke she worked away with several thin sticks and a soft blue yarn, magically forming a delicate bit of fabric. I asked her what she was doing, and she showed me the body of a tiny sweater, its lacy eyelet pattern, the places where the arms would go, the neck that she was shaping. She told me that she had learned to knit when she was a girl in Sweden, that all the women in her family had learned to knit as children... and then she went on to speak of other things.

She spoke of other things every week when I visited her, and every week she was working industriously away at some new baby item. I think she must have knit those things for a church, or the nearby hospital, or some other charity - certainly I never saw any other visitor, and she did not speak of any living family or friends. Still, the tiny garments disappeared, and every week a new one was on those needles.

Hanna did not offer to teach me how to knit, and I did not ask; perhaps she assumed that I already knew, a girl of nearly 10 years of age. To me the process seemed rather mysterious and magical. It did not occur to me that it was something that I might emulate.

Knitting was simply part of Hanna, a part of her Swedishness and her softness, the serene beauty of her expression, her gnarled yet deft hands, the darkness of her room, the darkness of her life.

Hanna was blind.

She couldn't see with her eyes the soft pinks and blues and yellows that she knit up into those tiny garments. She claimed that she could 'see' the colors with her fingers, and then laughed at my amazed questions. She easily identified each color for me, running her wrinkled fingers gently over the yarn, but she never told me how she knew. I have some idea now, as an older and more knitterly woman myself, but at the time it was just another magical facet of this gentle fairylike woman.

I easily accepted magic in those days, as I accepted many things.

More easily than I accepted it when one day we were approached by an administrator of the nursing home, and told that we could not see our elderly friends. A new company was managing the home, and there were insurance concerns, legal concerns about letting people visit who were not related to the residents. We were not allowed to say goodbye to our friends, we could not explain why we were abandoning them... we were just to go home.

Those years were a dark and complex time for me, and this rough separation from my elderly friend was no less dark and complex. I felt terribly sad for her and for myself. I felt guilty for the seeming abandonment of our lonely seniors, and angry for what I felt was the senselessness of that forced separation. I mourned the loss of a friend, and mourned that I could claim no other friend to replace her. I resented my sister's easy acceptance of the loss. I resented my mother for not fighting the administrator and the unreasonable rules; I resented the librarian for not warning us that such a thing could happen; I resented myself for not having the courage to flout authority. I hated having to live in the sort of world where Rules were more important than people.

I still hate that. I understand it somewhat better now; sometimes I fight it and sometimes I accept it - but I still hate it. It always brings me back to that helpless, frustrated moment in the nursing home when I first really encountered the forces of Bureaucracy and Order.

I never saw Hanna again. But I see her in my mind now, whenever I smooth my hand over my own knitting and feel the woolen stitches warm and soft under my fingers, fingers that are now beginning to wrinkle and gnarl ever-so-slightly.

We weren't Family enough for the comfort of the Insurance Company, Hanna... but you left me a great inheritance, nonetheless.

Glass Menagerie #5

2006-02-20T06:46:00.000-08:00

Almost done... I'm not putting up my whole collection, just a representative sample. Aren't you relieved?

Here's a group of miscellaneous fantasy figures. Two are Steve's. With apologies, I cannot identify the maker of the dragon, and unfortunately I do not know how he frosted the glass.

Mine, And Not Equine

2006-02-19T21:38:00.000-08:00

Just to let you know that I wasn't completely incompetent, here's a couple of my pieces that aren't too bad.

The little dinosaur was my first attempt at color work, I did it all by myself and was very proud. I made the color myself, and layered it (you can't see in the pic, but he has a cobalt blue core with a white stripe down the tummy and tail). The hard part was coating the colored glass with clear glass, and not getting something so totally clumped up that it couldn't be used to make anything recognizable. It's lumpy, but it's sort of cute, and I like it. So there.

The Octopoo/Squidish thingie was done primarily for the purpose of practicing at doing swirly bits relatively smoothly, instead of making something that would cause the observer to fear that I was having a seizure at the time of production. It's not as easy as people like Steve make it look.

This is a dragon of Steve's. The swirling-around-each-other effect is achieved by twisting the color around a clear rod of glass, and then covering the entire with another layer of clear glass. Note how Steve is able to do all this and produce a perfectly smooth surface on the figure. I want to be Steve when I grow up.

Notice that it isn't a horse. Not even a little.