There's a reason why I'm not considered a comic genius.

The two jokes I've come up with recently:

What does a couch say?
Moo-ch

[When leaving] "I'm Subaru Outback."

You know. Instead of "I'm Audi 5000." Nothing like a joke based on outdated slang. I think I can get it to catch on in Vermont, though. Seriously-- every other car around here is one. And 3 of my friends' Subarus are white. And so are they. And 2 of them are named Christine. And one of them has a best friend named Christine.

I'll stop rambling now.

A Valentine for my bigger little love

Poor Sebastian. Months ago while riding the school bus, he lost the red mittens I knit for him last winter. He was devastated. Despite my best efforts to locate them-- checking the lost and found at school, asking his bus driver-- the mittens remain lost. I told him that whoever has them now probably saw how warm they were and didn't have mittens of their own and thought it must be their lucky day when they found them. This was cold comfort. (No pun intended.)

Every once in a while, this disappointment wells up again, resulting in tears. I reassure him and remind him of all the other wonderful mittens he is fortunate to have, but the sting of this loss is strong. (I'd be lying if I said it didn't please me that he feels sad both because he loved them and because he knows how hard I worked on them.)

Most recently, he was reminded when I asked him what color pixie hat he wanted. The first response was, "Maybe dark red so that every time I wear it, I can remember my beautiful red mittens that I... [prolonged sobbing]." I was happy he decided on yellow so we could avoid having a breakdown every time he wore his hat. And yesterday he came home from school and spotted Dorian's pair on the kitchen counter and got a little too excited that I had made him another pair.

Well, won't he be pleased when he sees these next Saturday:

A robot on the left and a rocket ship on the right. (There will be when it's finished.) See the robot's little heart? And there will be a heart shaped window on the rocket ship I have designed.

I think the boy has suffered enough.

For you Listmaker

Since we have a slightly different readership, I thought I'd ask mine on your behalf about the circumcision question.

Listmaker has identical twin boys on the way. Identical. Twin. Boys. What this means is he has two more penises to deal with soon and needs to decide what to do with them.

My 8 loyal readers are parents, grandparents, and baby-free, so there should be a variety of experiences to draw from in answering the question of whether or not to circumcise.

I am staunchly against it. I am not ashamed to admit that my boys are intact. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

If you'd like to read it, Listmaker has outlined some of the points involved in the decision making process in his post and has received some interesting responses. (Full disclosure: 3 of those came from this house.)

My dream came true... and it was even awesomer than I hoped

Just yesterday I was saying to Jeremy that I wished that the town would come and remove some snow from our street. I have been watching dump trucks full of snow drive by for the past 2 days taunting me. Our street (at least the one our driveway is on) has been about 2/3 the size it is when there is no snow.

What this means is that when I shovel the driveway, I uncover the sidewalk and then have to shovel a further 4 feet out to the street. While this makes more room for an extra car to park, it is also a back breaker.

This morning I heard the siren song of large trucks backing up, so I went to the window to investigate. For several minutes I watched as a grader drove back and forth up the street, eventually leaving a trail of snow slightly off center. I wasn't sure how the snow was supposed to get into a dump truck that way. I assumed they would push it into a big pile and then use an excavator to pick it up and dump it in the truck.

But no!

I know this picture isn't great, but here's what they actually do: That big bulldozer thingie, instead of having a scooper on the front, has a giant version of a snow blower called a SnoGo. The snow blower machinery is as tall as the dump truck (and is obstructed in the photo). The arm that aims the snow being thrown hooks over, sort of like after a basketball player shoots, or the way a fey man holds his hand. Then the dump truck drives slightly ahead of the big snow blower and the snow blows in as they drive down the street.

Genius!

It's the little things...

Bad mojo

The reason I am not making a pixie hat for my cousin's baby is that I am planning on sending this jacket, which you may have noticed me working on for some time now. Everything is finally done except for sewing on the button and the zipper for which I need orange thread that I do not currently own. So even though I had planned to finish this up before the little boy was born, I failed. He was born Saturday and is, as far as I know, happy and healthy and too small for this jacket anyway. So I have a little time. Those suckers pack on the pounds quickly though, so not too much time.

Although I am pleased with the (almost) finished product, I feel a little guilty giving this thing to a baby. At the risk of sounding like a total New Age hippie-dip, I have knitted a lot of bad energy into this sweater. (This is where you have to ignore my obnoxious earlier post about knitting love into every stitch. My hyperbole got the better of me, I guess.) I am tempted to finish it and then burn it in the yard. I hated every minute of knitting with that yarn. I had to knit on needles 3 sizes too small and still had to do math to get the pieces to the right size because my gauge was so far off. And I have spoiled myself lately with cushy, elastic wool yarn, so knitting with some unforgiving cotton was misery. It made my hands hurt. The finished fabric looks and feels nice, but the process was unpleasant.

Even so, I think it makes a handsome baby jacket, and the pattern itself was fine. I would just ever ever never never use that goddamn yarn again. Never. Ever. Not ever.

CSAgony

The decision I have been dreading has finally arrived, even earlier than I thought it would. I received an email today regarding the CSA we belonged to last year, inviting us to join again.

And I'm afraid we're going to have to say "no", but I feel kind of bad about it. I mostly feel bad because I was certainly one of the farmer's biggest supporters. It was her first year, I thought she was doing a fine job, but some people were giving her grief. I was perpetually reassuring her or telling her how happy we were to get such wonderful food and how excited we were for the new things we were trying. I really did enjoy the experience.

Then we bought our house. And now I have room for a big garden. I won't need all of her vegetables if everything goes according to plan and I have my own. Not to mention that my biggest draw toward that particular farm were the fruits. But they have announced that there will be no peaches, plums or cherries because of how cold January was.

And that's not the only thing that has changed for the worse. Eggs will no longer be included in the share. The discount for members buying extra items has dropped from 15% to 10%. And there isn't going to be the in-town pickup option this year.

So, I think I'm going to have to pass this time around. I'm still committed to buying from them. I will happily frequent their PYO berries and apples. But I'm going to try to strike out on my own this year.

I'm gonna be crabby... prepare yourself.

I'm going to preface this by saying that this post is not inspired by a certain princess' comment on the last post. I was planning to write it before I saw the comment.

I would like to say that if anyone asks me to knit anything for them or for anyone else they know, they will not be receiving anything knitted by me ever again. Ever. I am a busy woman. I think a lot of my busyness is pretty selfless. I don't have to volunteer at school, nor do I have to make a million baby hats. But I do. I do it because I like to be helpful and because I like to make other people happy.

But lately, I've been unhappy. And one of the reasons for this is that people are frigging greedy and driving me nuts. I know I should take it as a compliment that people want me to make them things. But if I want to make a hat for my cousin's baby, I will. If I want to knit you a Xmas present, I will. But if you ask me to, not only does it make me feel guilty that I don't have the time to give you the kindness you seem to want, but it makes me feel pressured to come up with something and it makes me mad. Especially since some of the requests come from people who have lost or destroyed or never thanked me for the things I have made for them in the past.

I view my knitting as not only my craft, but my art. Every blessed thing I come up with for someone is born of some sort of inspiration. Whether it is a beautiful yarn that reminds me of the recipient, or is a pattern that screams their name, the projects I come up with on my own are expressions of my love and my art. You don't have to like them, but you should know that every stitch comes from my heart. (Well, technically my fingers, but you get the gist.)

So when I hear that you want a new hat or a new scarf or think I should make something for someone I haven't spoken to in 2 years, it annoys me. It makes me feel like what I have already done isn't good enough. Or it makes me feel like I should be your personal accessory stylist instead of spreading the love around.

So here are your choices:

1. Ask me for something and get crossed off my list. (If you don't like my work, choose this one.)
2. Don't ask for anything and know that if you are patient, you'll get something eventually.
3. Ask me how to knit and I will teach you how to make your very own awesomeness.
4. Thank me genuinely for what I have given you, treat it with care, and know that you are much more likely to receive things in the future.

I love you all... but I put enough pressure on myself and I don't need y'all adding to it. Thank you for your patience and understanding.