Seen and heard

Seen:

While driving to school this morning, I was behind a station wagon with a "Baby on Board" sign affixed to the back window. As it was turning into the school parking lot, its driver threw a cigarette butt out of the window.

Apparently I am expected to have more of a stake in that baby's safety than the parent is.

Heard:

Dorian was very excited by the prospect of finding Easter eggs filled with "malted meatballs."

The New Normal

My friend Amanda and I have been talking about when we should stop waiting for things to "get back to normal" and just accept that we have an ever shifting, very busy, new normal. For example, things are "back to normal" this week because Jeremy just took both of the boys to school for the first time in 3 weeks. But, he leaves at 3:30am tomorrow for a business trip from which he will return Sunday just in time for me to go to work. Not normal, but approaching being the New Normal since this is the second trip in as many months.

But, as I'm sure you suspected, some things are as normal as ever around here. Like the knitting... Let me introduce you to my latest, slightly abusive, and generally unhealthy relationship:

My February Lady Sweater. Henceforth to be known as the "March Miss Lady Sweater". This pattern is extremely irritating. I'm sort of irritated that I'm even making it considering that every other female knitter on the planet seems to have also made one. But we all know that I hate to follow a pattern, so of course, mine will have short sleeves and 8 small buttons instead of 3 large ones. There was some serious frogging with this little lady. For some dumb reason, the lace part starts before you divide for the sleeves, so that when I would make it short sleeved, it would end up with one little strip of the lace. It looked stupid. So I ripped it back to where the lace started, did some more garter stitch instead, and voila! it is much improved. I also made the button band narrower since my buttons will not be so large.

You might ask why I would continue with something that caused me to use the "f" word way more than normal. And the answer would be that I really want a lacy, short sleeved sweater to wear over my sundresses in spring and summer if I get a little cool. And I looked for a different pattern and just didn't have much luck. So I'm sticking with this one. And as long as I don't eff up the lace pattern again, the rest should be smooth sailing.

In the meantime, when I've needed some stockinette to soothe my frayed nerves, I've been working on some socks for Jeremy, who is the only one left in this house with no "mommy socks."

I thought this was self-striping yarn when I bought it, but it's more like self-spiraling. That's okay. It fits him like a glove. For his foot.

Be careful what you wish for

I have been heard to complain that Maryland has been getting all the snow that is rightfully Vermont's. We had the same icy inch of snow getting dirtier and dirtier for the last couple of months. And finally last week the snow came again.

And then this week, it snowed some more.

And I had been wishing for snow. Snow to sit and knit by. Snow to bake bread to. Snow to deposit the children in.

But I didn't ask for feet of snow immediately followed by inches of rain that meant I would be shovelling water. (Yes, I know snow is frozen water.) Shovelling slushy water is about ten times harder than shovelling powdery snow, even if it is less likely to blow back in your face when you fling it. And Sebastian's boots have spent a week stuck in the baseboard heater unsuccessfully trying to dry. You don't want to know how bad that smells. Swampfoot-- ugh!

Lousy winter. You done me wrong this year.

I'm ready for February

I know an awful lot of people who were quite happy to shake the dust of last year and jump into this one. I, on the other hand, have not been too pleased with January, which will be going out on the same sour note it has been playing for weeks.

True, it hasn't been all bad. I did get my ring, after all. And my little brother came to visit. But people are getting me down with all their nonsense.

• I really need to get my child development book out and find out whether it is just seven year-olds in general or mine specifically that are such a pain in the ass. Add to that not knowing what to do about him and the nightmare that is the school bus, and parenting does not top my list of fun activities.
• Despite my reassurances to myself, this PTA stuff just really weighs on me. And even though part of me knows that 3 months isn't a very long time, it seems like an eternity until I can get out of this gig.
• A certain person in our family has been unwell for quite a long time, and things are looking particularly grim these days. And because of the nature of the situation, it is a very draining experience.
• Dorian's school has announced that they will be going sledding every Tuesday for the whole month of February, thereby messing up one of only 2 days a week that he goes, because of course they want drivers and chaperones for these little excursions.
• And I get to end the month with Jeremy leaving on a business trip for 4 days to floody California. At least I'm not dealing with poopy 10 month-old twins alone like that brave soul Mr. Listmaker.

You know, I learned from my nature program puppet show that chipmunks are dormant through the winter, lying on a pile of seeds they collected, waking only to take a little nibble here and there and fall back asleep. Doesn't that sound grand?

My 'do is a don't

I just had to cut my hair because I was putting plastic over the window in the kitchen.

How on earth does that make sense? you may ask.

Well, let's just say that when I leaned forward to inspect the plastic to determine whether or not there was a hole in a crease (there was), my hair got sucked into the motor of the hair dryer I was using to shrink the plastic. I turned the dryer off, but not fast enough, and then had to cut my hair or spend my life with a hair dryer hanging off the side of my head.

Another glamorous day...

0 for 2

Jeremy and I suck royally at finding a good movie to see in the theater. Last month was the Invention of Boring. And this month was the reinvention of boring aka Paranormal Activity. Save your money, people! Unless you are a tween, in which case you will probably think it is awesomely scary, when in fact it is not.

However, last night we found a movie that was actually scary and combined 2 elements that I am ashamed to find unsettling.

1. Burlap sack masks (Mildly ashamed-- I think everyone can agree they are creepy.)
2. Caves (Somewhat ashamed-- They're just geography. Or geology. Either way, they probably shouldn't freak me out so much.)

So, this little gem is called The Orphanage and is available on Netflix Instant if you are interested. In addition to the aforementioned creepiness, there's the "mother with a secret", the "impossibly large house with too many rooms to get lost in", the "kid who has imaginary friends who might be ghosts" and the "weird, bespectacled old lady" to keep you on edge. I screamed at least once, maybe twice, where I spent a lot of time yawning during the other films.

Boo to that!

Friday night, I was almost finished with my sweater. I was so close I could taste it. Then I noticed a mistake and I ripped back 10 rows. I redid the ten rows and then I did 8 more, but something was nagging at me. The yarn, which is somewhat variegated, was doing a sort of stripe thing. But I thought it might not be that bad, which is why I knit 68 of the 92 rows.

And then I looked at it in the cold light of day and it was striped alright. No doubt about it. The only problem being that none of the rest of the sweater is striped. And I didn't set out to have a sweater with one striped sleeve. No, sir. And thus it was frogged. (When you rip it! rip it!) Almost 3 hours of knitting undone in about 30 seconds.

Lucky for me I had another skein and it seems to be working out much better. Maybe I'll even get to wear it tomorrow...

But I'm thinking I maybe need some more stripes in my life and I might need to make one of these, just in a different colorway. You know, because I didn't get enough yarn the other day. It's a miracle I make it out of that yarn store empty handed most weeks.

Roller coaster day

Today started with my being very ashamed of myself and feeling like a giant ass and is ending with my being very proud and having kind of a big head. So where are these extreme body parts coming from?

Well, yesterday I found out that one of the girls at Dorian's school has a sibling who was diagnosed with (gasp!) swine flu. So, this morning I was leaving the school after dropping Dorian off and on my way out the door, I ran into the mother of this little girl who has decided that since the little girl is not exhibiting any symptoms that she is going to bring her to school. Because I'm an insensitive moron, I greeted her with a lighthearted "Hey, plague-bringer!" Big surprise, this was not received well and she glared at me and said, "That was NOT okay for you to say!" Of course I apologized immediately and profusely, but she was not having any of it. It was a joke. A bad joke to be sure, but a joke nonetheless. I was not trying to be mean or judgmental. That's apparently how I sounded though, and I felt like shit all day.* I wrote her a very nice apology which she will not receive now until next Tuesday when the kids are back in school, but I have done my best to make amends.

Then, this afternoon I decided to stop by the yarn store to drop off the bowl I made but kept forgetting to bring in for a display. When I got there I asked if the owner had had a chance to review the pattern that I wrote for my striped arm warmers. She asked me to write one up using a new yarn we are carrying, so I finished one arm warmer on Sunday at work and typed up the pattern. And, she told me it was exactly what she wanted, and-- get this!-- someone already bought the yarn and got the pattern. My pattern! Someone is knitting my design.

See-- I'm not all bad.

*I felt like shit until I found out that not only did she bring the kid to school (which is questionable enough under the circumstances) but she also brought a snack that she cooked (pasta) and not something like crackers in a sealed package.

What do accountants get paid?

Whatever it is, it probably isn't enough and is certainly more than the $0 I made after spending 8 hours today dealing with the money from the raffle/Halloween event. My money counting muscles hurt, the numbers stopped making sense around 3:00 and my hands will probably never come clean.

Good times.

The invention of boring

Jeremy and I got to have a much needed date night on Friday which I will rate thusly:

• Food: B. We went to the restaurant in a local brew pub and while my Indian turkey burger was fine, they forgot to bring me my soup that I desperately needed to warm myself after Sebastian's soccer game.
• Games and Tea: A. I won both checkers and Trivial Pursuit. And the chai at the Twilight Tea Lounge was delicious as always.
• Movie: C- to D+. We saw The Invention of Lying. It was truly boring. Sadly, profoundly boring. I do not recommend watching it, except for the part with my favorite Wallace lookalike. Except for that all too brief moment, it was deadly dull. And all the more depressing for the abundance of actors that I like. Boo.
• Companion: A+. Jeremy's still my favorite person in the whole wide world.

And in other news, the body of my sweater is finally done. I am not fond of the angle at which this shot was taken, but it is the only one I've got.

And a closeup of the edging (which I cribbed from the mystery sock):

And on to the sleeves!

Because it actually can get worse... or at least weirder

So, after my rotten day of rottenness, I decided to go to the grocery store alone. Should have been a pretty easy thing to do. So I get to the car and realize I don't have my 2 fold up reusable bags. I go back in the house and get them.

I get to the store. I toss them, along with my purse, in the cart. I shop. I get everything on the list. So far so good. I put everything on the conveyor belt.

But where are my bags? They are not in the cart. They are not in my purse. They are not mixed in with my groceries.

Okay, I think, it has been a rough day, maybe I just think I put them in the cart but they are sitting on the seat of my car. Stranger things have happened.

Stranger things have happened. Somebody stole my store brand reusable bags! They were not in the car. I wasn't crazy after all.

My wallet full of cash and credit cards with absurd lines of credit? Nope.
The boys' awesome space hat? Nah.
The keys to my car and house? Not so much.
But my banged up reusable bags? Score!

Metal or bamboo?

The knitting needles may have to become a weapon now that I have found out that a certain insane person in charge of a certain crazy event thinks I'm not doing anything even though I have wasted both of my free mornings this week doing shit for her. And I already have an hour tomorrow to look forward to as well as Monday morning. She's lucky I don't know the first thing about how to fire bomb a house.

Putting the "mal" in malabrigo

Well, just as I was about to get to the part where I put the sleeve stitches on holders, I discovered that I had screwed up yet again and was going to have to start my sweater over from scratch for a fourth time. And therefore, this skein of yarn is cursed.

I will be starting with a new ball. And I will be understanding the directions a little better. And I will not be giving up. But it is pretty disheartening after two perfect sweaters for the boys for which I didn't even use a pattern to not even be able to follow one properly, or to follow it only to have it be wrong.

The first pattern I used was a formula that you plug your gauge into and it spits out a pattern supposedly tailor-made to your knitting. Well, after two goes at that pattern where it became obvious that nothing but a newborn's head would ever fit through the neck hole, I found a different pattern.

The second pattern is already at my gauge and had many glowing reviews on Ravelry. And it was free. But it is also very confusingly written and involves doing one thing while also doing two other things AT THE SAME TIME. Somehow I misunderstood one of the AT THE SAME TIMEs and didn't do it which left me with perfect sleeves but a chest measurement of about half what it was supposed to be. I am not that flat that I can wear a top that measures 17 inches around.

So, I'll be casting back on later with a new ball of yarn. But maybe I should just focus on clue #2 for the mystery socks.

Totally inappropriate

I was at a birthday party for a 3 year old tonight. There was a woman talking loudly about the abortion she had when she was 16 and advising all who would listen to just lie about your dates if you go past 3 months.

Thanks for the hot tip.

Yes, I have fallen off the face of the earth. Why do you ask?

Remember when I told a fellow board member what was what about how I wanted nothing to do with a certain event? Well, the event apparently is not letting me go so easily. Poor Hott Mama, wanted by diminutive Hispanics and overlarge fundraisers alike... I have been spending the last week sifting through an average of 15 emails a day on this mind-numbing topic, at least several of which require some response on my part.

Today, though, I got to escape to my hobby job and ignore that shit for 6 solid hours. I also managed to:

• finish that bulky baby sweater*.
• use the sample to sell 2 copies of the pattern and enough yarn for 3 versions.
• help some people with their knitting troubles.
• assist a woman in a one-person fashion show of all the adult-sized samples in the store.
• sell 5 out of the 6 skeins of this yarn that we had in stock.
• have the exact same conversation with the 3 different women who bought that yarn about how those yarns usually are more red, but the ones they bought were blue, green, or white.
• start knitting a sheep, which sounds a little backwards I know, but it should be cute when it's done.
• make more in sales than it cost the owner to pay me to be there all day which is more than I can say for last week.

And now it is time to fall asleep in front of Mad Men so that I can wake up refreshed and ready to perform the newest installment of nature puppet shows in the morning.

* Whether the "bulky" refers to the weight of the yarn or of the child is anyone's guess. The finished product certainly looked like it was designed to accommodate Humpty Dumpty, Jr.

After today, I should never have to do PTA again. Ever.

But y'all know I will, so let's not pretend. Basically, though, I went in for a tangentially related PTA experience from 9-9:30am and then went back to the school where I was in 3 consecutive meetings from 5:30-8:45pm. That is not an exaggeration, and I barely had time for the one pee break I took.

Overall, our first public meeting went well. We only went over by about 5 minutes and the attendees were positive and interested. So that was good.

The only dicey part came when one member of our board decided to not only accuse us all of not appreciating her enough, but also decided to imply that I personally would not be doing enough for the school if I chose not to help her with her fundraiser.

That's when I finally got to tell her what's what (in a mostly respectful way) and totally shut her down. My dear friend who is also the secretary told me I "toed the line" a little bit in the way I handled the situation, but whatever. She's just lucky I left my knitting needles at home.

Another school year begins...

And it is abundantly clear that I learned absolutely nothing last year. In the space of a half hour "Meet and Greet" I have embroiled myself in doing the healthy snack again and upping my puppet show quotient from 4 to 8. That is on top of the treasurer duties which keep piling up and doesn't include whatever chore I will be assigned by Dorian's cooperative preschool. And I decided to take a job in addition to this?!

Argh.

About 3 minutes after arriving at the lake on Monday, a certain friend of mine announced to the entire world that she was "not a patient mama today!" And despite her announcement, she totally was, but sometimes you just have to let everybody know how things stand.

Well, you know what? I am not a patient mama today. I'm not. I have screamed at the children several times for being, variously: rude, whiny, obnoxious, holier-than-thou, tiresome... you know, all the things I have been accused of being my whole life.

So far today I have had to put up with

• being woken up by Dorian screaming about all the miseries of life.
• finding out that during his sleepover, Sebastian and a girl friend of his were kissing in bed. (But it's okay because they are "in love").
• listening to complaints about what kind of sandwiches I had to offer for lunch and how Sebastian would not suffer the indignity of eating a peanut butter and jam sandwich.
• taking the kids to the pool for an hour (even though I was already pissed about their behavior) because we had made plans to meet someone else there.
• allowing the kids to have ice cream mainly because they had been promised it as part of the whole pool excursion, only to have them end the experience by screaming at each other about whether or not a tagger should continue to tag after tagging someone.
• listening to Dorian shriek about how he needed to hold a CD case that he had just handed to me of his own volition.

I almost left them on the side of the road. It was only my slight fear of police intervention and my greater fear of the vicious gossip mills in this town that prevented me. And to think that when someone asked me if I was looking forward to the start of school I said "no".

Sartorial shenanigans

Yesterday at the mall in my favorite teenager clothing shop as I tried on a coat with a "fur" hood:

Sebastian: I just love a woman such as yourself in a fur coat such as that.

And that is why he is my favorite shopping companion.

******************

Today at the library's end of summer cupcake party:

Teacher friend: You and C always have the cutest clothes. I need to go shopping with the soccer moms.

You can imagine what a knife to the gut that was. A very innocent, genuinely complimentary knife to the gut. Soccer mom!?! Just because Sebastian went to soccer camp and wants me to sign him up for the fall soccer team doesn't... mean...

[sob]

I never should have disappointed Cortney in this way

She said she'd never have a friend who belonged to the PTA, and even though she promised me we'd still be friends even though I allowed myself to become treasurer of the organization, I know a little part of her love for me died that day. As well it should have, since I was clearly demonstrating that I was a person with no sense, totally blind to reason.

The two hour meeting the other night actually lasted 2 and a half hours and would have gone longer had I not announced that it must have been after 9 at that point and discussions were devolving into committee level detail. A vodka cranberry later, I was on the verge of quitting. However, I did make a commitment and I don't like to be a quitter, so the only solution that I could see was to air my grievances to the rest of the board.

This resulted in a shit storm of approximately 10 million emails back and forth-- some defensive, some productive, all tiresome (including mine). And now we get to have another meeting immediately before the meeting that we are scheduled, according to the bylaws, to have a meeting immediately after.

All of this just makes me realize that I should just be doing what I enjoy and actually impacts the students, like puppet shows about snowflakes, and not what makes me frustrated, like sitting through seemingly endless meetings about fundraising which was the part I thought we should be spending less time on, not more.

Why didn't I focus more on clinging to a friend 3000 miles away instead of my misguided do-goodery? Because I am a fool.