she's just saying...

The cream in my coffee

My half and half habit has escalated, to my waistline's detriment. I blame New England, and #1 sister.

New Englanders like cream. In New England (where I lived during my formative coffee-drinking years), when you order a "regulah" coffee, it comes with a generous glug of half and half. If you don't believe me, go to a Dunkin' Donuts. My very New England aunt used to use light cream in her cereal, and felt she was sacrificing when she cut back to half and half. And Sister #1, as my readers know, is a strong advocate of cream. She only uses non-ultra pasteurized half and half, and like many other things, I acquired the same taste. There really is a difference.

So Saturday night Henry apparently ran out of milk for his cereal fix and made do with the last of my cream (diluted with water). I woke up Sunday morning to no cream or milk. He soon learned the error of his decision, and I doubt it will happen again. So after Henry made an emergency run to the corner store and I was fortified with coffee, I did my usual Sunday Safeway shopping.

I used to buy the usual small pint size container for my coffee. Without realizing it consciously, I had moved up to the quart size some time ago. They were out of quarts this Sunday, so I reached right for the HALF GALLON. Now it sits in my fridge and frankly I feel no shame. Just the comforting knowledge that it's there for my coffee tomorrow morning.

Mmm... creamy.

Weren't we cute?

Happy Halloween from the family, circa late '50's:

You can't see it here, but I had a turtle shell strapped to my back. Cutest little reptile ever!

 

But wait, there's more:

 

Okay, one more, because you begged:

But how come I have to be the clown again?

You'll never sleep alone...

I'm single, yes, but I don't sleep alone. On any given night, there are one or more other sentient beings sharing my not-big-enough queen-sized bed. These can range from a 10-pound cat to a 100-pound Henry. This morning five of us ended up there together, everybody sleeping peacefully except the owner of the bed herself. Tonight I'm locking the door.

Who could say no to this face?

The vacation that would never end

Due to the beautiful and magical Christmas Day snowstorm here in the North Carolina mountains, we've been stuck delayed here three days longer than planned, logging in our ninth day in residence today. We are confirmed to fly out tomorrow at 6 am God willing and the creek don't rise as they say here in the colorful Smokies. Or they should, if they don't.

After the requisite five hours on the phone on hold with various travel entities, we gave up and settled in. Me to knitting, eating and drinking, Henry to cartoons and endless video game devices. We ventured out to shop for shoes a few times as consolation. We miss our cats and home, but we're certainly getting visiting time in which is nice. MyBigBro was with us until yesterday which added good diversion and also a lot of noise. I come from a family of loud talkers, I should add. With six extremely verbal family members around the table growing up, you had to talk loud or keep quiet. I was the keep-quiet one.

This trip, we talked a lot about throwing up. BigBro fondly reminisced about how I got carsick all the time as a child; the times we had to pull over to let me get out on the way home from church; or not pulling over soon enough, etc. Henry was fascinated of course. For some unknown reason, Henry and I both had "intestinal upsets" this visit. Mine occurred all Christmas Eve night - thanks, Santa! Kept me from eating all the Christmas cookies at least.

The Color Purple

Over my life, I've fallen in and out of love with many different... colors. [I bet you thought I was going to say men. That's also true, though a topic for another post.]  As a child, gazing at pink and blue together actually gave me a physical thrill. That's no longer true, sadly. I went through a red phase, including painting a bedroom wall deep enamel red in high school which my mother approved, bless her heart. Pink and coral are still perennial favorites, though not with blue, and brown has wormed its way back into my wardrobe, almost supplanting black, though not totally. And you may remember my recent fling with chartreuse that continues still.

But as #1 Sister knows, I've always intensely disliked the color purple. This makes me an anomaly in my family: it's MyBigBro's favorite non-black color, my mom and #1 both like it, and Dr. Sister likes "jewel-tones" including purple; but me, not. [Note to self: query dad re: opinion of purple.]

That's why I was more than a little freaked out when I realized that the last six balls of yarn I've purchased have all included purple. Real purple, not just a certain shade of blue-ish lilac which I've always kind of liked.

Check this out:

So clearly I can no longer categorically state that I don't like purple.

However, I can still say that I really dislike dark green. And burnt orange. Especially together, or when they're with purple. I don't think that will change, but you never know...

I think it's interesting that color preferences can change. Have you warmed up to a formerly-rejected color, or fallen out of love with a certain hue?

Memorializing (reposting today)

My dad, Reinhard George Hochschild, is 92 and a veteran of WWII. 

Here's a photo of him being awarded the Legion of Merit:  "...awarded for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements.  The Legion of Merit is sixth in the order of precedence of U.S. military decorations."  (Typically, they misspelled his name on the certificate, but also typically, he doesn't think it is worth getting corrected...)*

*Thanks to MyBigBro for this post

Knitting countdown starts now

Starting tomorrow, I'm putting aside all personal knitting (sob!) and working on Christmas presents. Once again, with no money and lots of yarn, I'm setting the goal of knitting all presents for family and friends. So, no talking about what's on the needles or showing works in progress on the blog sidebar til January, assuming I hit my target dates...

So, the perennial question: would you rather ask for and receive exactly the gifts you want or would you rather be surprised by the imaginative choice of the giver? For me, this becomes the dilemma of whether to choose a pattern/yarn/color I think the recipient would like or whether to ask them beforehand, which isn't as much fun. I've thought of choosing a few options I want to knit and having them pick from those, but that's a lot of work, frankly.

It's not so hard with my sisters as I know their tastes, but for nieces/nephews, it gets tricky. Those twenty-somethings can be very choosy. Of course, I know what they really want and probably need more than any knitted item: cold hard cash.

 

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

what's on the needles late summer

I was doing so well. Practicing knitting monogamy. Focusing solely on the Summer Solstice cardigan. Well, there was that little fling with the market bag, but I needed a travel project over the fourth. And I did return to Solstice when it was over.

Unfortunately, it's now become clear that the honeymoon is over. I've hit the really boring part: straight stockinette stitch for long rows forever. But I still have to keep track of the rows because every 4, 8, or 12 I have to increase or decrease a few times. This means it's boring knitting, but not mindless knitting. A crucial difference. Mindless knitting means totally zoning out, not paying any attention, finding a zen state where you just form the stitches, over and over. This is not that. I have to count every row, which just emphasizes the slowness of my knitting progress. So the sweater has become one of those works-in-progress that I'll pick up now and then, rather than one I'm enamored of.

So the itch to cast on was not to be denied. I have an excuse - Doctor Sister is having a big birthday in September, and it calls for a lovingly-hand-knitted gift. Plus I'm broke, and one thing I have is yarn. So I had to start a mystery project that can't be discussed here until it's done and wrapped and mailed and received on time by September 17. Or as soon thereafter as is possible. (OK, now she knows kind of what she's getting. But the anticipation of what it actually is should be thrilling.)

Then there's the next project. Due to the shopping frenzy and subsequent swapping action from the Goth Socks sale, I'm now the proud owner of some new yarn. Sadly for my stash, the newest skeins are always the most attractive. So I'm back to endless perusal of patterns on Ravelry, planning and scheming, pulling out needles, swatching samples and itching for the day when I cast on again.

Not Dr. Sister's yarn.

The conservation of bustedness

Part of my August blog-cation: rerun from August 2008 (as are the first 3 comments...)

My big bro Steve has always espoused the theory of the "conservation of bustedness." In essence, it means that if you successfully fix something, something else must break. I always thought it was one of his semi-serious paranoid delusions, but allow me to pour myself a BIG glass of wine and tell you about my day.

I won't talk about Mary-who-stays-with-me-weekends's 55-pound puppy who frolicked in my carefully landscaped pond, tried to pick up the kitten with her "soft" mouth, ripped up Flash's special frisbee and chased both my cats, all before noon. No, this is about the smoke alarms.

I have seven interconnected smoke alarms in my four-bedroom home. That means when one goes off, the others all chime in helpfully. Today one of them went off (false alarm) but of course we couldn't tell which. So Mary and I ran around with our fingers in our ears changing the old batteries, and thought that was the end of it. Of course, fixing them meant something else had to go bust (according to the theory), so when cleaning up the mud the ladder left behind, I realized my fancy-schmancy vacuum cleaner could barely suck through a straw. Then a smoke alarm went off again (with all new batteries!) so we went running around trying to pinpoint the offender again.

Meanwhile, Flash (just a tad neurotic) panicked over the alarms, bolted out of the house and down the street, the labrador puppy gleefully following. We had to drive around the neighborhood for some time til we located them, brought them home and tried to figure out the smoke alarms again. Of course we couldn't pull the car all the way into the garage because Henry's bike was in the way (did I mention I ran over his bike Friday and had to get it fixed for $99?). Henry came back from looking for Flash and pushed the garage door closer which began to bang rhythmically on the roof of my car, having run off its rails and gone berserk, finally crumpling in defeat.

So now I need new smoke alarms, a new garage door and a vacuum repaired. How was your Sunday?

S'mores

We've got a thing for s'mores around here. For those of you who never went to scout camp or just arrived on this planet, a s'more is a graham cracker sandwich made with a melting marshmallow and piece of Hershey's chocolate. You're supposed to toast the marshmallow on a stick over coals, but nuking the whole thing in the microwave works in a pinch.

Controversies surround the proper toasting technique. I prefer the perfect golden melting perfection achieved through careful patient toasting. Then there are those philistines who like to immolate their marshmallow into a flaming sugar inferno, which not only tastes burnt but causes cancer. Seriously.

I bought s'more makings for our family gathering last week and we enjoyed watching three 20-somethings turn into 11-yr-olds again along with the actual 11 yr-old in attendance. My cousin Rafe had the toasting technique down - I was quite impressed.

I also learned that it's really hard to shoot a pure white object next to a pure black object with a point-n-shoot camera.

artsy

life in the south

Well, hello there, y'all (spoken very slowly). Sorry I've been out of touch - I've been on vacation at my parents' in North Carolina and the outside world has kind of faded away. Maybe it's the humidity, maybe it's the south, maybe it's because I don't have my computer, but I never seem to be able to post from here.

Things move slow here, including me. It's hot and muggy. And even when it's not hot it's muggy. I'm always amazed at the humidity, coming from the high desert. It's like living underwater. Everything is limp. Paper, clothes, cereal, my brain, the cat. With the notable exception of my hair, which is having a party all by itself.

Plus I've been busy. We've been cooking, hanging by the pool, knitting, comparing mosquito bites, making huge pots of food, buying groceries, cooking more food, pulling weeds, discussing dinner, cleaning up after dinner, marveling at loathsome bugs, writing shopping lists, reading, making lunch, watching soccer and tennis, stopping at various farm stands for more vegetables, sewing, going to the supermarket and oh yes, cooking. See? Way too busy to blog.

How does anything ever get done in the south? I'll post after I get home and dry up.

Why is leaving so hard?

To those of you hoping for a relationship update, sorry - this is about traveling.

I'm headed to LA for a week (aww, poor me) for a museum conference, which should be a lot more fun than it sounds. Lots of big parties after-hours at various museums, we're staying in a fabulous hotel,  and hopefully have some time off to enjoy ourselves. The only obstacle is that I have to leave town.

For a single mom with pets, traveling is a pain in the patootie. Organizing myself is hard enough, not to mention being gone from the office for a week while continuing to manage projects. But organizing an 11-year old, two cats and a geriatric dog for a week on their own is like planning a military invasion.

I know. Very little sympathy from you all. So I'll move on from whining to packing.

We have five work days including a fairly important meeting, three big parties plus relaxing time. All in a carry-on. I've been fascinated by a slide show on the NYT website in which a flight attendant demonstrates how she packs. It's all about rolling. You tightly roll everything you can, and you fit much more in a bag. She supposedly fits the following in one carry-on for a 10-day trip:

"...three pairs of shorts, three pairs of dress pants, one skirt, three pairs of casual pants or jeans, three nightgowns, three bathing suits, one sarong, three lightweight sweaters, four dresses, 10 casual shirts, six dress shirts, a clutch, toiletries and two pairs of shoes. She’ll wear the third pair of shoes, as well as jeans and a longer sweater."

Hmm. First, I don't think I own that many clothes. Second, she must be a size 0. Third, I frankly don't believe it. And who needs three swimsuits, three nightgowns, 11 pairs of pants, four dresses and 20 shirts/sweaters for 10 days? Are you kidding me?

But I've been carefully watching her technique and am going to try it. Here's my meager collection so far. I just can't find room for the sarong. Maybe I'll wear it on the plane.

And the lucky winners are...

Before I announce the winners, I have to explain the selection process.

 First I had to disqualify family due to obscure but specific state rules governing sweepstakes. You want me to go to jail? Plus, if I give you stuff now, I'll have nothing left for Christmas. 

Next, I decided to eliminate all previous contest winners, with the aim of spreading the wealth. Sorry guys, but if I told you that first, you wouldn't have commented. Call it bait and switch. So sue me.

Then, I had to take out Kathi D (not literally) as she was already a weiner, er, winner.

That left three people, of whom two were new commenters who both get two entries. So, five little slips of paper were carefully made and tossed into my coffee cup from which to pull the winning names. Unfortunately, I neglected to empty the cup of its old coffee first, so all the entries got soggy and illegible. Rather than start over, I decided to award a little knitty bit to each. So, without further excuses:

The Winners!!

• Lonnie, you lucky dog (KG, tell him what he wins)
• Jen, a faithful supporter who can be blamed for this whole blog thing to begin with
• Carrie, a brand new commenter whose location is still a mystery

Further, you get your choice of knitty bit:

1. Apple cozy
2. Cup cozy
3. Catnip mouse

And family will just have to stand in line. Christmas is only eight months away...

Most amazing home appliance ever

Henry's Uncle Steve, known to loyal readers as YrBigBro, sent Henry an amazing device that should profoundly influence the direction of our lives from now into the distant future.

Behold: The Muffin and Egg Maker!

It toasts the English muffin AND cooks the egg and even heats a sausage patty ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Brilliant, yes? Whoever invented this is a genius. I've even experimented with adding a little cheese to the egg cup and it works great. Instant egg mcmuffin!

This will radically improve our mornings and Henry's breakfast diet, which will help him concentrate better in school thus getting higher grades, getting accepted to a top school and earning the means to support his dear old mother in her impending old age. Wow. All from a little toaster. Isn't America great?!?

(For family unity I should note that the original toaster idea came from Dr. Sister who sent one to Steve who then sent another one to us. Thank you, family!)

 

What you do in Texas

11 years ago, in a mini-mall far, far away...

Today's our "Gotcha Day" as they say in adoption circles, so I'm republishing this post from last year.

Where babies come from: between Domino's and the dry cleaners

Ten Eleven years ago today, in a non-descript office in a non-descript mini-mall in Humble, Texas, a social worker placed a little baby in my arms. I stared down at him staring up at me. I recall my first thoughts were: "You've got so much hair!" followed by "You're so dark!" followed by "I can't believe they're giving me this baby!"  I'm sure Henry was thinking the same things, as he looked astonished, frankly.

My big brother Steve and I had driven from Austin to Houston that morning to "Go Get Henry!" as Steve's map was titled. I had warned him about the religiosity of the Texas adoption agency and he was prepared for whatever came up. (Another couple I knew were invited to pray before they received their child.) We met with the director, who commented on how wonderful it was that my brother lived in Texas and was able to accompany me. My brother, who is an imposing character with a deep voice, proclaimed loudly: "It was meant to be!" Satisfied I was acceptable, she closed the deal. I handed over a check and they handed over Henry.

They let us leave, baby in arms (I was expecting alarms to sound) and we walked off into our life together.

Top Ten Tues: boring details edition

Drowning Girl by Roy Lichtenstein

What idiot said: "Don't sweat the small stuff -- and it's all small stuff"?

Actually, he's right, it pretty much is all small stuff. But it all has to be sweated, or it won't get done. Then what do you have?? The fabric of our society torn apart, rather than just fraying at the edges.

I'm having one of those nights. Here's what I'm obsessing about:

1. Henry's 11th birthday tomorrow - I haven't planned anything
2. Buying cookies for Henry's class on the way to work in the am
3. Finishing videos and the website for the new exhibit we're opening Thursday
4. Flying out at 6 am Sat. for a knitting retreat
5. Organizing Henry for the weekend, complete with ski stuff
6. Valentines Day (the day I return) - cards, candy, etc. for H.
7. Ravelympics 2010 - a knitting event during the Olympics (I'm on Team Hopelessly Overcommitted)
8. Calling my parents
9. Getting Flash to the vet, and oh, who's going to watch him this weekend?
10. Fixing the leak over the kitchen window - needs professional help

Sometimes it's all too much. Nothing to do but have another glass of wine and tackle today's Sudoku. Or whine about it in a blog post.

What do you do when you're being sucked under by the small stuff?

Top Ten Tues: sustainable or just cheap?

My parents are both very frugal. My mom grew up on a small farm in New England, a direct descendent of austere puritan stock. My dad grew up during the Depression in Germany. Though his family was well-off, it must have left an impression, because he's always been fiscally conservative. Putting four kids through good private college and grad school on an engineer's salary must have been tight, but we had a solidly upper-middle-class upbringing due to my parents' careful spending.

Regrettably, I can't say I inherited the trait. I think my family considers me fairly extravagant. However, I did pick up some cost-saving habits along the way. My friends used to laugh at me for them, but now they're kinda green and eco-hip.

So whether you want to save money or the planet, here are ten 3R*s I learned at home:

1. Rinsing and reusing ziplock baggies, bread wrappers, foil and paper plates - always some drying on a rack by the sink
2. Saving butter wrappers to grease cookie sheets
3. Using dishcloths instead of paper towels (sorry, KathiD: warshrags)
4. Picking all the meat off the turkey carcass for soup and stock
5. Carefully saving wrapping, bows and ribbon to reuse, sometimes for years (the common refrain at Christmas: "don't rip the paper!")
6. Putting cheese ends and bread crusts in the freezer for fondue and breadcrumbs
7. Pouring off bacon grease for cooking (I don't cook bacon, but I do render chicken fat)
8. Composting and growing our own vegetables (we composted back in the 50's - it was considered a bit weird in our suburb)
9. Adding water to dishwashing liquid to stretch it
10. All four of us taking a bath together to save water (OK, that was when I was 4)

Okay, I know a lot of you had a similar upbringing. Share your passed-down cheap green habits here.

*reduce/reuse/recycle, but you knew that

Mexican calendar girls, irony and my ex-boyfriend

I ran across this cool book while searching for a new calendar, and was reminded of an incident from my not-so-distant past.

My BigBro lives in Austin, Texas (don't get him started, please), and a few years ago sent me a calendar from his local diner that featured an illustration of a buxom Mexican beauty with straps of bullets across her chest and a gun slung on her back.

I thought it was lovely and generously thought it would be a great gift for my boyfriend at the time. (Yes, that one.)  I gave it to him for Christmas and waited for the appreciative response. He opened it, looked at me blankly and said: "Why would you think I'd want this cheesy calendar?"

I should have sensed at that point that we weren't made for each other. What I saw as an ironic, iconic, folk-artsy hip piece of Tex-Mex Americana, he saw as a cheesy calendar. Which, to be fair, it was. But that wasn't the point.

Well, never mind. I wish I'd kept it. So, hey, Steve, send me another one!

Fear of Flying: 2010 version

The not-so-friendly skies

I got this email from from Sister #1 and had to share:

"In the last 8 weeks I’ve had:

-- 18 take-offs and landings;

-- 3 de-icings;

-- 1 long delay at a connecting airport due to snowstorm fouling up schedule;

-- 1 delayed departure due to bad weather at destination;  

-- 1 pre-dawn flight in total darkness (cabin lights inoperable due to cold overnight temps);

-- 1 crew-change delay due to bad weather elsewhere causing late arrival of incoming flight with new crew;

-- 1 return-to-gate (mechanical problem) with rebooking on later flight on same airline;

-- 1 cancelled flight (mechanical problem) with rebooking on much later flight on different airline; and

-- 2 last-second aborted landings 15 minutes apart (pilot said he couldn’t see the runway), rerouting to another airport, 2-hour wait on the other airport’s runway, flight cancelled, and long bus ride back in snow and fog.

I guess the good news is my luggage was never lost and no one broke their hip putting my suitcase in the car."

[note: my dad fell with a suitcase last year and broke his other hip. He's recovered.)