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"Summer is over and gone, over and gone, over and gone. Summer is dying, dying." The cricket's song.

~Charlotte's Web, EB White

In elementary school, one of my teachers read Charlotte's Web to us, page by page, doing all the voices and acting out the scenes. I had read the book on my own, but really enjoyed her reading it to us. The passage above is from one of my favorite parts of the book, although it always makes me sad to read those lines.

I was thinking about the crickets and their song over the weekend, when I was out on the lake in my parent's boat. My favorite spot on that boat is the lounge chair/couch at the stern, right above the engines. Quite literally on top of the engines. Which are loud. As you can imagine, this does little to help my already poor hearing, but I enjoy watching the wake behind the boat, and the jet-skiers who play in the waves the boat makes. This particular boat ride was probably the last of the season, always a bittersweet thing.

It was a chilly ride, even though it was a sunny and reasonably warm day. Soon, it will be too cold (and impossible, but I'll get to that in a minute) to cruise around the lake. The leaves around the lake are starting to change, just small hints of red and orange on sporadic trees. There isn't much undeveloped land on the lake, and we drove past some of the showpiece houses on the northern end. Everyone is getting ready for the closure of the season - the state drains about 20% of the water out of the reservoir in October - and it is always sad to see people pulling out their boats, securing the docks and boat lifts so that they survive the harsh wind and ice of the winter.

The lake is a man-made reservoir, and like many in Ohio, has a muddy bottom. So the water isn't the crystal clear blue of the Gulf of Mexico, or even the bluish green of the big lake, Erie. More brown-ish, although in the right light in the summer, it appears to be a deep, navy blue. Once the wind picks up, and you get a passel of boats on the lake, it gets rather stirred up, and can look as muddy as the Ganges sometimes.

Uncle State of Ohio lowers the level of the water in the fall because the ice in the winter would destroy the dam at the lake's northern edge, between the expansion of the water when it freezes and the enormous pressure brought to bear on the dam from a lake full of ice. Understanding the reason behind the lower level of water doesn't make it any nicer to see; if you ask me, the lake looks forlorn when landside docks don't reach the water, and the muddy bottom is exposed to the cold light of day.

I grew up around boats and water, am comfortable on the water even though one of my greatest fears is dying by drowning. Fatalistic? Yeah, maybe. Hey, I've never claimed that I'm reliably sane. But there isn't much that is more soothing to me than floating along on a body of water, be it on a powerboat or sailing, or even on a pool float.

Watching the wake a powerboat makes has always fascinated me. In the Gulf down in Florida, if you're in the right spot and going the right speed, dolphins will come and play in the wake, leaping out of the water to plunge back into the slipstream the wake makes, seemingly so close that you could reach over the stern and pet them. You never know when or where they will pop up, so it is always a thrill when they do. I half expect to see them here up nawth, too, even though I know full well that there's nothing even close to the size of a dolphin in any of the fresh water lakes where I play in the summer time.

I remember an animated film from my childhood about unicorns that did a neat trick of changing the waves and the spray from the ocean rolling in on a beach into galloping unicorns. (The Last Unicorn, for those who care.) The Swedes use an expression that translates literally as "white horses" when describing rough seas, and I have enough imagination and am enough of a six year old in my head -still- to be able to see those vita hästar in the powerboat's wake.

The light changes as the summer dies; the diamonds dancing on the water are something you don't see in the wintertime, even on the sunniest of days. I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for that; the changes in the proximity of the earth to the sun from summer to winter; the change of the amount of daylight, something scientific, but I don't know (or care) what that reason is; to me, it signifies the death of the summer, and I can hear the words "summer is over" in the crickets' songs. (Active imagination or actively insane, one or the other!)

Fall is my favorite time of the year here, so bittersweet indeed is the change of the seasons to me. As much as I love the crisp, cool days the fall brings, the occasional whiff of (illegally) burning leaves, cold apple cider, pumpkin cookies, the gingerbread I begin craving as soon as the temperature drops, and the beautiful color show that nature puts on for us in September and October, there is something inherently sad in summer leaving us. I understand the Greeks and the Romans for coming up with mythology that explained the winter as a season of Demeter mourning Persephone. The shorter days ARE sad. Beautiful, colorful, crisp and near-perfect, but sad nonetheless.

Yarn-related ranting and some non-sequiturs.

I love knitting with big, bulky yarns.  Bulky yarns, according to standards provided by the Yarn Craft Council of America, are yarns that knit 6-11 stitches to 4 inches.  The smallest category, for those readers who are not fiber fanatics, lace weight, can be as many as 40 stitches to 4 inches.  Bulky yarn should be knit on big needles, size 11 (8 mm) and larger.  

I am not a fan of lace weight yarn and teeny-tiny needles.  I know knitters who think that my size 7 (4.5 mm) needles are "huge".  No, size 7s are small.  I knitted a shrug for my sister on size 7s; that sucker took me 5-1/2 MONTHS to knit.  Urgh.  I want to make things that are finished a little more quickly than 5 months.  And maybe next time I knit that same pattern (for ME!) it might go more quickly, because I'm familiar with the pattern.  But making things that take eons...just not my style.

Sadly, I realize that I am indeed part of the instant gratification everything-all-the-time set.  Wonder if my obsessive-compulsive disorder has anything to do with that.

Back in March when I visited my sister in New York City, she took me to a wooooonderful yarn store in Brooklyn on Atlantic Avenue, Knit-a-Way.  My sister is a great one for monopolizing my knitting time; she sends me patterns via e-mail or links via instant message, asking if I can make whatever it is for her.  She has 3 hats, a scarf, and a shrug of my making.  I'm not complaining, I'm usually thrilled to accommodate her, and she is always appropriately excited about the finished projects.  2009, however, will be the year of me knitting for ME.

At Knit-A-Way, sis picked out some very yellow yarn for me to use to make a hat for her.  Manufactured by an Italian company (di.Ve Fiamma) and imported by Cascade yarns, the 100% wool was surprisingly a delight to work with.  Surprisingly because 100% wool makes me itch like crazy.  I can not wear wool next to my skin in a sweater or trousers without at least one layer of cotton between me and the wool.  I think my skin is hypersensitive to wool.  I've worked with wool before that made my hands itch from holding it.  But this didn't make me itch.  The pattern I chose for my the hat was probably part of the reason that I enjoyed working with the yarn.  I like the pattern so well that I've made 2 more hats with the same pattern and have a third on needles, not done.

I've searched locally for more di.Ve, and while one local store does carry many of Cascade Yarn's products, di.Ve isn't one on their list.  They're quite happy to order it for me, with me paying the shipping, and a bit of an elevated price.  Thank you, but no.  Not that I don't want them to make money, I do.  I support local merchants whenever possible.  But this stuff is expensive at the MSRP.  Adding to the cost makes it worse, and paying shipping adds insult to injury if you ask me.  

So I've watched eBay and searched on Ravelry for people willing to part with di.Ve that they already own.  Found some, and the person was willing to part with it for a very reasonable price.  In our exchange of e-mails, I mentioned the trouble I have had trying to track this stuff down, and she informed me that many of the Fiamma colors are no longer manufactured.  What?!?  WTF?  Turns out that with the rising cost of, oh, EVERYTHING, bulky yarns are getting too expensive for local yarn stores (hereafter referred to as LYS) to buy and carry on inventory, and so buyers for the yarn stores are purchasing less, and money talks, people.  Bulky yarns tend to be expensive, and so to purchase enough of it to make, say, a sweater or a full-size afghan, you'd be breaking the bank.  The volume that your LYS sells, then, is much diminished from the volume of finer gauge yarns.  Result?  The LYS doesn't have a lot of bulky yarn.  Boooo!  Boooo!

On to the non-sequiturs, then.

I went to the doctor's office, my usual family doc, to get a flu shot.  Yes, yes, you're supposed to get that in October or November, but I didn't.  I plead laziness and lack of time.  I'm leaving for Florida in a week and the flu is making the rounds there, so I wanted to make sure I finally got one.  The entire collective office where I work has also been passing a viral infection around.  Fun.  Yeah.  Like a hole in the head.

I hate waiting in doctor's offices, but usually manage to stay calm by knitting or reading.  Several of the other folks waiting were really pissy about their wait, making lots of passive-aggressive remarks.  Equally as annoying as waiting, if you ask me.

When I finally got called back, the exam room where the nurse was waiting with the shot had a framed bit of advertising from a drug company advertising medication that treats an extreme form of sleep apnea.  Like many of these posters, there was a checklist of questions to ask yourself, and the oh-so-helpful tag line that if you answered yes to three or more of these questions, you should talk to your doctor about this apnea thing.  These kind of things are bad for me, because I am a major hypochondriac.  So I try to look at these posters with a humorous eye, not with an omigod I'm going to die eye.  That said, the list intrigued me.

Waking up with headaches.  Check.

Sleepiness during the day.  Check.  My caffeine consumption has gone up A LOT recently.

Chocking sensation while sleeping, waking up coughing.  Check.

Excessive or very loud snoring.  Check.  DH claims I snore.  I know he snores, lots.  Dunno if I do, really, but I believe him because my dad snores.  

Hmm.  Something to think about.  Maybe the headaches have more to do with something outside of my usual litany of suspects; hormones, weather, ciggy smoke, stress.

Secrets to spill

My friend S owns a salon.  I found her in the phone book, but in yet another demonstration of how small my hometown really is, S was close friends with my cousin J when they were both in high school.  J wasn't really one for having her nails/hair done, but before she passed away, she used to spend time hanging out at the salon.  I didn't discover this until I'd been going to S's place for a couple of years, hilariously.  

After going there for more than 10 years, I consider S a good friend.  She teases me during the holiday season, because I bring cookies and other hand-made gifts to her and her staff; she tells me all the time: "You're so crafty!" and I snark back: "Martha Stewart is crafty.  I'm creative, which is way cooler than 'crafty'!"

But I've never thought that the stuff I make for holiday giving is all that difficult.  Bath salts, hand lotion, sometimes vanilla sugar, always cookies, usually one or two knit things.   Nothing that requires a degree in food science, chemistry, or really, a high skill level.

I don't know where I got the idea for the bath salts.  Can't remember.  I've been doing it for about 9 years now, and it couldn't be easier.  The ingredients are 4 things.  Yeah, seriously.  

1. Epsom salts (from any big box retailer or drugstore)

2. Sea salts (from an online supplier, or sometimes the health food store)

3. Lavender essential oil (again online or health food store)

4. Water-soluble colorant (totally optional, but fun.  From the same place as the sea salts.)

Equipment required:

2 buckets, 5-gallon size work well for me

a large spoon, like they used in your elementary school cafeteria for serving food (one you don't care about, because really, you don't want to use it for food after making bath salts)

about a half-hour of time

jars to put the finished product into

a funnel to get the salts into the jars (one of these works best if your jars have a wide enough mouth)

I don't really use a recipe; I've just done it long enough that I don't need directions.  You can Google "making bath salts" but many of the recipes call for glycerine (so not necessary) or baking soda or obscure soap-making ingredients like rhassoul clay....I call all of that "trying to re-invent the wheel" because they're making it so much harder than it needs to be.

I mix the two kinds of salts one bucket.  I should probably note here that I use equal amounts of sea salts and epsom salts.  That's an important detail, sorry.  I measure out the required amount of lavender. Which really is a personal preference kind of thing.  For roughly 20 pounds of salt, I use about an ounce or an ounce and a half of essential oil.  Yes, it is strong.  Yes, it makes the whole house smell like lavender (and that's a problem....why, exactly?).  

No one has ever complained to me that hey, Luce, the bath salts are great, but couldja scale back the lavender?  Ever.  

The next step almost requires three hands, but I manage OK by myself.  I pour the salts in a steady stream from one bucket to the other, and pour the lavender oil into that stream of salts.  Of course this results in clumps of heavily-saturated salts, so that's where the spoon comes in.  You stir.  And stir.  And stir some more.  When the oil is fairly evenly distributed, I use the same process to add the colorant, pouring carefully and slowly, and then stirring some more.

So your spoon ends up purple-ish, and smelling like a perfumery.  I strongly suggest washing it by hand several times before putting into your dishwasher, or all of your dishes will end up with a soupcon of lavender-scent.  But it has taken me longer to type this out than it does to make the salts.

The vanilla sugar is even easier; plain old white granulated sugar and a couple of vanilla beans are the ingredients; cut the vanilla beans in half lengthwise, scrape out the seeds, combine the sugar and vanilla in the food processor, pulse to combine, put into clear glass jars.  Whoa, rocket science, eh? This year I used half-pint mason jars, which hold about 2/3 of a cup of sugar; I used 4 vanilla beans and using a measuring cup that is a 2/3 cup, scooped eight of those 2/3 cups into the food processor's working bowl.  Somehow, though, I ended up with 9 half pint jars.  Maybe I can't count.  I wanted 12, but the food processor wouldn't hold that much, and the food processor is very noisy, so because I finished the first batch after 9 PM and DH was trying to sleep, I decided to make the rest another night.

The funny thing to me is that people are so impressed with this stuff; the vanilla sugar takes maybe 10 minutes to put together, and that's if you're slow cutting the vanilla beans.  The bath salts take a few minutes longer, but the ingredients are cheap, easy to come by, and folks, this is simple.  

The hand lotion is easy too, and I wish I could claim that as an original idea.  Nope.  I buy a kit from the same online supplier, although whilst searching for the kit today, I can't find it on her site; good thing I bought two of the kits when she had a sale this summer!  I don't make it exactly per the directions (oooh, shocker, right?) I add Shea butter, usually purchased on eBay, and lavender.  Thematic, anyone?  But the incredibly cool thing about this stuff is that it is solid at room temperature, which means that it will never spill.  It can melt, but doesn't spill because the kit comes with little tubes, slightly larger than a chapstick tube, with a solidly-closing cap.  So very very clever.  Also takes about a half hour to make.

Most of my holiday gift-giving secrets, shared with teh interwebs.  I'm just not telling you about my re-gifting plans.

*snip*

Further proof, if any was really required, that I am out of my mind.

Despite not being into the religious part of the holiday (heck, the material part isn't all that interesting to me either) I do enjoy the holiday season for a number of reasons: people tend to be nicer in December, my birthday is in December, I love finding unique presents for my friends & family, I enjoy the orgy of cookie baking.

For many years, I've sent a ton of Christmas cards.  Since I came back home from Sweden, it has been a way to keep in at least vague touch with a worldwide network of friends.  Because many of those friends are not Christian, I've always been careful to find a message that is kind of neutral as far as mentioning Christmas/Hanukkah/Eid, but I want to at least let these people know that they're in my thoughts. 

As the years have gone by, the list has changed, grown, expanded, and it now encompasses more than 70 names, in 4 countries.

People, this is insane.

I worked on the cards this week, and while it isn't an ordeal, it is a lot of work.  I cheat by NOT addressing the invitations by hand; you can't read my handwriting anyway, so what's the point? Usually, I order cards in August-ish, they get here in October-ish, and I send them out over Thanksgiving weekend.  When I order cards, I have them printed with a message from DH and I, and have our return address imprinted on the envelopes.  This year, sometime around April, I stumbled across a bunch of Product (Red) Christmas cards at a Hallmark store that were 90% off.  I bought all they had, figuring it was far cheaper than what I normally did and since I was working on commission at the time, it seemed like a good idea.

Amazingly, when it came time to send out holiday greetings, I actually remembered that I'd already bought cards, and was even able to find them in our storage room.  Wonder of wonders.  I could not find my pre-printed return address labels, but that's OK, I made more.  

I use a mail-merge to print out labels for the cards, and once this was done, they sat around for a few days until I got to them.  When I started slapping labels on the envelopes, there were more than a few names that made me stop and go, "huh?!".  These are people that I used to work with years and years ago, or old high school friends that I have not actually spoken to in years, or even in one case, the children (well, adult children, but still) of old neighbors of my parents.  Come on!  This is patently silly.

DH refuses to have anything to do with the holiday card insanity; he won't even sign the ones addressed to *his* family.  It is a fight I'm not interested in having, so I just leave him out of it.  But he always asks if I've remembered to send out cards to a few old friends of his and a business contact or two.  Yes, they're still on the list.  When I was going over the list with him, there were one or two people that he raised his eyebrows over; again, people we have not actually spoken to in years.

So in my infinite wisdom, I've decided that this is the last year for more than about 20 people on that list.  People I still talk to, fine, they're staying.  Relatives; well, can't leave out so much as a single cousin or there would be hell to pay, so they're staying too.  People that I have some semblance of a relationship with, even if it is just inside the computer, they're staying.  Old co-workers from 4 jobs ago: gone.  High school friends whose parents still live in town but they never bother to call when they're around: gone.  People that I sent cards to out of a sense of obligation (i.e., I sent one to their best friend, so I should send one to them, too) also: gone.  People that I send cards to that I don't actually like: gone.  

Wow, that was liberating!  Sad, too, but incredibly freeing.  

Self-stressors

Even though my family has declared a moratorium on gifts for the holidays this year, and DH and I managed to convince his family that we should all just buy for the kiddos, that does not mean I'm exempt from the gift-giving madness.  Which is OK, mostly, because I like doing nice things for people during the month of December.

But I decided earlier this year (maybe....August?) that I could manage to make something for everyone that I work with AND my friends, knitted somethings.  As soon as I made the decision, I started knitting.  Part of the method of my madness, too, is that I'd like to use up some of my stashed yarn.  (stash yarn = Ravelry-speak for yarn that you already own, most likely stashed in boxes or plastic bins about your house.)  I'm making good progress and using up yarn I've had for years and years.  I've made several scarves, a handful of dishcloths and face-scrubbie wash cloths.  The wash cloths are small, and I put a little bar of handmade soap (not soap *I* make, c'mon, I'm not that nuts) in the middle of the washcloth, take a complimentary yarn and run it through the 4 corners, tie it up, and it makes a cute little packet.  Easy, easy, easy present, takes no more than an hour to knit one.

So why am I stressing over it?  

The main reason is that like almost everything in my life, I have defined parameters, rules about the knitting.  I don't allow myself to have more than about 3 projects on needles, because it makes me f-ing batty if I've got too many projects going.  It stresses me more than I need to be stressed.  

How many projects are on needles right now?  

1. a scarf 

2. a hat 

3. a washcloth 

4. and 5. baby blankets (although those shouldn't count because I'm not actively working on them)  

6. another hat, 

7. a shrug that is 99% done, and 

8. a shawl I started last night and then ripped apart because I can't figure out the pattern.  

There's another scarf that I don't have on needles yet, but it is my next project, swirling around in the back of my heard.  Urgh.  That'd be 9.  Then I have two skeins of a soft yet sparkly yarn that I plan to make hats with, one red and one black.  I can't wait to get started on them.  Which, for those keeping track, would be 11 projects.  It is with the crazy-making.

There are not enough hours in the day to get them all done.  

And then I have to figure out when (and what) I'm going to bake for the people I give cookies to every year.....

Crazier (than ususal)

You might have noticed a new item in my sidebar.  The fabulous Mrs. G at Derfwad Manor had a post about NaBloPoMo, and I had to check it out.  

(Hmm, I think I need to update the list of blogs I read....Mrs. G is nowhere to be found there!  Horrors!  I shall remedy that forthwith.)

The idea is simple; commit to doing 30 blog posts in 30 days.  They suggest a theme, but it is optional.  The theme from October was voting, but they haven't named one on their front page yet for November.  I suppose that's because I'm up and playing on the computer at stupid o'clock, and they're probably on the west coast.

My writing has slipped to a low priority of late, and I don't like that.  My dad used to tell my sibs and me all the time that, "Everyone has 24 hours in a day."  Helpful, that.  Tell me something I didn't know.  Within your allotted 24, then, you have to find the time to do that which matters to you.  Recently, the priority has been sleep, what with my insane week at work, eight straight days of 12+ hour days.  Sleep is important.  I'm unpleasant without the proper amount of sleep.  The writing doesn't get done, though. I've been getting in to bed around 7 PM and although I don't sleep in more than 3-4 hour segments, one would think that the approximately 7-1/2 hours of sleep I do get would be enough.  

I don't want that pattern of climbing in to bed so incredibly early to continue.  It does not bode well for the coming winter, when my instinct is to hide in bed anyway.  Apart from the depression making me unwilling to get out of bed, my bed is the warmest spot in my poorly insulated house in the winter.

So I'm giving this crazy 30 posts in 30 days idea a shot.  As I don't yet know what the theme is, I'm not committing to that right now, but maybe I will.

Completely OT and switching gears now, I have a silly story to relate.

I lost my wallet about a week ago.  Genius, I know.  Annoying, too.  I had to replace: my driver's license, the one credit card I carry in my wallet, my debit card, and a whole bunch of 'customer rewards' cards, from Hallmark, the grocery store, the two big bookstore chains in the area, an electronics store, about $6 worth of stamps, my health insurance card, my Sam's club card.....and I don't even know what the hell else was in there.  I never carry cash.  Ever.  I got out of the habit of doing that when I was dating the ex, way back during my sophomore year of college.  A neighbor of his in the dorm was mugged right outside of the dorm, as were a bunch of other people.  I figured if I didn't have any money in it, I could hand my wallet over without too much angst if I needed to.  Such fabulous logic, no?  Anyway, I've never gotten back in the habit of having cash in the 10+ years since then.  

But, of course, when I lost my wallet, there was about $35 in it.  

Naturligt, as we would say in Swedish.

Nostalgia for the musical past

Once upon a time.....

My dating history (what little there is of it, since I met DH when I was 19) is filled with musicians.  DH is not a musician, although he was a band geek.  No harm there, all of my friends were band geeks, and I was nuts about choir.  Music has always been a central part of my life.

In high school, I dated a guy who introduced me to BritPop, specifically new-wavey sort of stuff, Squeeze in particular.  He gave me a tape that he had dubbed of Squeeze's Play album, and I played it over and over and over in the tape player of my first car, a two-seater.  I loved that car, and there are a few bits of music that remind me of being 17, driving like a maniac down the highway in my cute white sports car, sun roof open, long hair blowing all over the place, music blasting at top volume.  Mostly the bad pop of the day, (En Vouge, I'm looking at you!) but a few gems like Prince's I Wanna Melt With You, Modern English, Tori Amos's Take To the Sky, and this Squeeze tape.  

Because the tape he gave me was one he'd taped from the original album on a dual tape deck, the sound was pretty crappy, and I had no idea what the name of the album was, or what most of the songs were.  I mean, you can usually guess with pop songs by the chorus of the song, but not always.  There were two songs in particular, Crying In My Sleep and Wicked and Cruel that I really liked.

Teh interweb is great for being able to vomit up the title of a song, the name of the album, and the artist's name from a few poorly remembered lyrics.  (Sorry for that imagery.)  iTunes is great for tracking down old stuff too, and I've written before about finding The Stone Roses on iTunes from the same process....type the lyrics into Google, hit enter, and within the first few hits from the search engine is the information you're looking for.

I knew that the old tape that the old boyfriend gave me was by Squeeze.  I no longer have the tape, much like my entire Janet Jackson catalog, it has disappeared into the sands of time.  I found two other Squeeze tracks I liked on iTunes, Black Coffee In Bed and Tempted, but there was no locating Crying In My Sleep.  Maybe I didn't remember the name of the song correctly.  So I searched.  I HAD remembered it right, it just wasn't out there on iTunes.

I've run into that a time or two before, but been able to locate the music I wanted digitally through begging friends to search their collections.  But with one or two exceptions, most of my online friends had never heard of Squeeze.

Amazon it was, then, et voila there was an import copy of the Play album, new, never played, from an import CD store.  Woooot!  

I have not purchased a CD for years.  Years and years and years, probably around 8 or maybe even 10 years.

So when it came (finally!  how on earth is it that something takes 10 days to get from California to Ohio?) I promptly popped it into the computer, uploaded it to iTunes, and spent the rest of the day playing the disc over and over.

One of the kind of fun things about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or my particular manifestation of it, anyway, is that I can listen to something over and over and not necessarily get bored with it.  I can re-read novels, or watch a particular movie, and not have it be super annoying.  Music in particular, though, I get particularly OCD about and have been known to put one song on repeat for an entire day.

It doesn't annoy me.  But it does annoy most of the rest of the world, and I know that, so I try to not inflict that obsession, the obsessively repetitive listening, upon others.  

I have long since stopped trying to analyze this behavior.  Why do I listen to something repetitively?  I don't know.  I just roll with it until the urge passes; I'm perfectly happy usually with the music just in the background.  It doesn't interfere with my ability to concentrate on other things, or rule my life.

But it does make me wonder.....on a scale of one to insane, where, exactly, am I?

Att sticka

Swedish, verb: to knit

Earlier in the year, I thought that my enthusiasm for knitting would wane with the oncoming summer months, as the weather warmed I'd be less than excited about carrying 'round some knit project, whatever it may be.

Instead, I am spending lots more time knitting. I'm actively trying to win converts to knitting. I have this nutsy-koo-koo idea that I should, between now and the Winter Solstice, be able to make enough dishcloths, scarves, hats, even a shawl or two, to give as holiday presents to friends and co-workers. My family has declared a moratorium on gifting this year; we're going to be together in Florida for a week, and that is present enough. But that does not mean that I'm exempt all together from the insanity that envelops the western world come December, the frenzy of shopping, wrapping, entertaining, running around like a lunatic in a frantic effort to get everything done before December 24.

I feel obliged to mention that although I am an atheist, most of the rest of my friends and family are not, and I would never diminish their joy in this holiday. I'm not one of those nuts who snarls at you when you wish me a "Merry Christmas." I like finding gifts for those I love, year-round. But the Christmas season is the only time in the West that you can give someone an extravagant gift, or do something profoundly nice, and it isn't a big deal. It is almost expected. I bake, hundreds of cookies every year, and give them to people that I want to give gifts to, but don't want to buy anything....like my hairdresser. The paper-delivery person. (If I had one, which I don't.) Volunteers, at my old non-profit job. People that deserve a 'thank you' and would feel uncomfortable accepting something at any other time of the year.

So of course, I have a mental list of the persons that I need to make things for: co-workers...hmmm....counting our interns, volunteer staff, and full-time staffers, that's 14 people. In-laws....7. Friends....some real-world, some inside the computer....at least 15, and I'm sure I'm leaving someone out.....

Holy shit! No wonder I'm spending most of my free time with needles in hand rather than writing. My math skills are poor, but I used a calculator to add all that up, and I count at least 36 things to knit.

Guess I'd better get to the knittin', eh?

Like, life-altering, man!

My sister in New York City rides her bike to work on a daily basis. The journey is six miles from her Brooklyn neighborhood to her Manhattan office. I think of NYC as being pretty flat, but there are a few hills here and there. Going over the Williamsburg bridge is halfway uphill and halfway down. Not a bad trip.

When I changed jobs, my commute shortened significantly, and I wanted to ride MY bike to work once I figured out that it was 5 miles from my front door to my office. DH was radically opposed to this idea, after I'd outlined my planned route to and from the office. Too dangerous, he said. I'm stubborn, though, and disagree that the neighborhoods I want to ride through are dangerous. I talked to my sis about it, and in typical R29 fashion, she said, "Lucille, ride your bike to work. It will change your life."

After DH stopped ranting and raving, he agreed that if I took a busier byway he'd be OK with me riding the bike. Very well; I drove that way to and from work on Monday, checking to see if it was doable on the bike. There's a spot of construction that could be a problem, but the sidewalks are all open through the construction zone. I don't like riding on the sidewalk, but it is either ride on the sidewalk or get smooshed by cars that CAN'T FUCKING SHARE THE ROAD. Ahem. Sorry. Maybe I should tell that part of the story another day.

Tuesday morning saw me hunting for a backpack and packing up everything I'd need to clean up after a 5 mile bike ride. I stopped carrying a backpack long before I got my undergraduate degree; I was a business student, remember, and worked full time at Ye Olde Evile Bank for the last two years of college. So I had a nice messenger bag when I was finishing up my degree. I still have it. But I'm not keen on carrying a messenger bag on a bicycle, and the bags o' stuff I've been carrying around wouldn't work well either.

I found the backpack in the attic. It is a throwback to my hippie days, made from hemp. I made the mistake of tossing it in the washer once, years ago, which shrank it, and made the already rough fabric even more coarse to the touch. It never really recovered from the washing. There's a red tag sewn into the natural-toned fabric. It says, "cannabis hemp." No wonder I quit carrying that when I started working in the business world.

The ride TO the office isn't bad. There are some uphill spots, but there's a lot and I do mean A WHOLE LOT of downhill coasting. The trek there took me roughly 35 minutes. The trek home...well, that took me about 35 minutes too. It is mostly uphill, and I rode the whole way, never getting off the bike and walking it. It was torture. My thighs were burning even BEFORE I crossed the bridge that is uphill, less than a half mile from my office.

Torture, and yet, I see exactly what my sister means. It was awesome, riding through very quiet city streets in the morning, just me and a few cars, getting to work before 7 AM (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), a productive day, and an incredible sense of accomplishment when I finally stopped in front of my garage and was home. I was as euphoric as when I crossed the finish line at my 5K on New Year's Eve. (Took me about the same amount of time to catch my breath too!)

I had a motorist yell at me to "GET OFF THE ROAD" just a very short distance from my house on the way home. I yelled right back. "Kiss my butt, jerk, I've got as much right to the road as you do!" Or I might have yelled something a wee bit more salty. Maybe. I was NOT in the middle of traffic in the middle of the road. I was as close to the curb as you can get without ramming the bike's front tire into the curb. Plus I needed to make a left-hand turn in fairly short order to get home, so the sidewalk wouldn't have been the place to be anyway, even if there was one there, which there is not.

I think I'll do it again. Because I need the exercise. Because I feel fantastic, better than I have in a long, long, long time. Because I think I'm going to sleep better than I have in quite a while. And not least of all, because it will save me gas money, too. The only way to reduce dependence on fossil fuels is to find alternatives to them, my friends. Provided, that is, I can walk in the morning. If not, I'll try again next week, and give myself a day's rest in between cycling 10 miles a day. Lance Armstrong I am not. And never will be. But maybe I'll have the chiseled thighs I've always wanted. Eventually.

Oh, and if you're wondering....yes, there are shower facilities at work. Very nice ones. I would not do this if I couldn't get a shower after that ride, phew, stinky!

Strain

I don't write about what I do for a living. That's a good way to get yourself blackballed in whatever industry you happen to be in. But I do share snippets and stories that are work-related from time-to-time. Today's one of those times.

I have an actual office, a real office, not a cubicle, at my new job. With! A! Door! Ahhh, when I was working for Ye Olde Evile Bank, I would have given a kidney to have my very own office. Not to mention a door that I could close when two of my cubicle neighbors would be throwing paper clips at each other, or loudly discussing confidential information about our clients. Good times, good times. NOT!

The new office is large, and it had all a girl could want; computer, phone, desk, bookshelf, second desk, table, boxes of crap behind the door, heaps of copies of stuff with outdated logos...no, wait, someone with OCD does not want heaps and piles of unusable junk. The two desks, particularly, boggles the mind. No, the office did not have two occupants previously. Plus there is a table that is as big as a desk, THREE guest chairs, a bookshelf, too much 'stuff' in that space!

I spent about 2 hours of my first day re-arranging furniture and bringing things to other staff members and asking, "OK if I throw this away?" I did get it to a point where it looked like the spacious office that it is, but there was one problem. My back was to the door, no matter what I was doing. On the computer, working on the desk's surface, talking on the phone....eventually, it gave me the heebie-jeebies, I was looking over my shoulder every ten seconds.


So the second day on the job, I'm re-arranging furniture, for the second time in two days and I'm sure my co-workers have decided that I'm bonkers. Will she do this every day? they're wondering.

The answer to that is a decided no.

Moving 'my' desk, a huge L-shaped monstrosity, wasn't much of a problem that first day. Sure, it took me a while, because I'm a stubborn fool, and I didn't ask for help. It is heavy, it has to weigh at least 150 pounds. Solid wood. But I quickly figured out that pushing it instead of pulling it worked better, and that the office is longer than it is wide. Not a lot of maneuverability, y'see.

I wasn't in the office for more than an hour the second day when I decided that the back to the door thing wasn't going to work for me. Damn! I just got all my pencils sharpened to exactly the same length and placed in neat rows, the sticky note pads put in a careful pile of smallest on the top and largest on the bottom, like goes with like...and now I've got to unload the whole freaking desk again because full of files and whatnot, that sumbitch weighs 400 pounds if it weighs an ounce.

Moving it the second time around was a challenge. A big challenge. Took me forever, and while the furniture is now in a place where I think it will stay, along with the overflow moved someplace other than my office, moving it left me drenched in sweat, wishing that there was a shower stall in the restroom, because I would have showered in a second if there had been one. The fact that I would have had to put the sweaty clothes back on.....well, we don't need to think about that in our fantasy world of what the perfect office would be like.

I hurt after manhandling the desk twice. A little achy here and there, letting me know that I don't hit those muscles during my workout sessions and need to improve. DH has an appointment this week with my magic massotherapist, and believe me, I'd steal it in a heartbeat if it wasn't for the fact that he's done something to his shoulder that is making him miserable. 'cause I think the phrase for this week should be

Ohhhh, my aching back!

Jolted

Someone that I work with has the same first name as the Auntie who passed away last fall. Over the months that I've worked there, surprisingly, I've never exchanged e-mails with this person until recently.

I get most of my e-mail on the crackberry, but the manner in which it displays on the crackberry is different from the way it looks in your in-box on the big computer. So when I signed in to the e-mail on the big computer at the end of that day, I had a quick shot to the gut when I saw the name in my inbox.

My Auntie never had e-mail, that I know of. I can still recite her telephone number from memory, but never exchanged e-mails with her.

More than six months have passed since she died. Time, they say, heals grief. Bullshit, I say.

Bull, because it still hurt when I realized (just a quick second after seeing the name) that the e-mail couldn't be from her. C'est impossible. Even if she had an e-mail account that I was unaware of, sending an e-mail gets a little bit tougher after you're dead. It hurt a little less than it did six months ago, but it still hurts.

I see dearies pushing their shopping trolleys (so much cooler than calling it a grocery cart or buggy, no?) in stores and think it is her. She didn't drive for at least the last 5 years of her life, and maybe longer, but I saw a car the other day and thought, 'oh, there's Auntie.' It wasn't.

Oooh boy, that tells you what a small place I live in, doesn't it?

I wrote the other day about waiting for something to happen, and how my tummy was doing involuntary rolls while I was waiting, sometimes happy swoops, sometimes oh-my-goddess-I'm-going-to-toss-my-cookies swoops.

These jolts of sudden grief are more like what I think a stab wound might feel like. Or what I know getting zapped with electricity feels like. Short, startling, sudden. Painful. Leaving me a bit breathless, and then it is gone.

I wonder if everyone thinks that they see a dearly departed from time to time, only to look again, and realize that there is no resemblance at all between the stranger in front of you and the person you're missing. I do, all the time. That second glance is enough to assure you it isn't them; I almost always roll my eyes at my own insanity and move on. And I hear the lyrics to a Jimmy Buffett song, which isn't even about grief...or isn't exactly about grief. It is about Hurricane Katrina, but regardless, it is good advice.

I bought a cheap watch from the crazy man
Floating down Canal
It doesn't use numbers or moving hands
It always just says "now"

Now you may be thinking that I was had
But this watch is never wrong
And if I had trouble the warranty said:
Breathe in, breathe out, move on

I'm trying.

These

Other than as an excuse to casually mention how cute Jared and Jensen are, I don't normally write or talk about paranormal activities, or ghosts, or psychic phenomena. People already think I'm crazy, y'all; I don't need to help them out by treating them to chapter and verse about ESP. Right?

I also don't like to write about my dreams. While sometimes it is fascinating to have a peek into someone else's psyche by reading about their dreams, sometimes it is less interesting than watching paint dry, too. So I tend to think that unless the dreams relate to something that is going on in my life, I don't give a daily run-down of what I dreamed about last night.

But I'm breaking both of those rules today. And most likely, when my mother reads this post (Hi Mom!) she will call DH on the sly and perhaps suggest that I ought to be committed. I already know how completely insane this is going to sound, but I need to get it out of my head and into some semblance of order so that I can deal with it, or explain it.

Going back as far as my elementary school days, I've had dreams that have happened. Not "dreams come true" like you always wanted Barbie's Mini-Camper and you got it. Dreams like drinking coffee with a relative and having a conversation that subsequently takes place.

Freaky, right? I've always thought so. It doesn't happen often, but it makes me sit up and take notice when it does happen.

These aren't life-changing events; I didn't dream about my wedding day, or graduating from college, finding that all-important first job. I dream about finding something out of order, or picking things up, or small chance conversations. Then, when that instance does happen, I get a shot of ice down my spine and a deja vu moment.

I've never really talked to anyone about this; I had a teacher in middle school who told the class that very intelligent people sometimes dream about how to handle a particular situation in advance. This was a class of high-IQ kids, and I just sort of shrugged my shoulders and went on, because these were never stressful situations that I'd dreamed about.

It hasn't come up in therapy because, hello, about 300 other things that need worked on first before we start talking about some fringe pseudo-science.

Getting ready to leave the house today, I was winding up a few balls of yarn that I am carrying around as I work on my next knitting project. I'm using a very vividly coloured ombre yarn that shifts from a flame orange to a dark maroon. (Don't ask me how, but it works, it is very pretty. Just go with it, ok?) I frogged out a scarf that I didn't like the finished project to add that yarn to my current project, and whilst ripping out the old project, I ended up with 3 or 4 balls of the ombre. I quit knitting late last night, and left it all in a mess. When I was getting ready to go this morning, I wound one section of the yarn, red, orange, maroon, green, and bam! there was that deja vu again.

(N.B. frogged: knit-speak for tearing out knitted rows, ripping back to before a mistake, or to unravel completely the finished product. Frogged because you have to 'rip-it, rip-it, rip-it')

Now you could say, c'mon, Luce, how often do you wind up balls of yarn that have gotten all messy, and you've used this particular stuff before, so clearly, this is something that you've got yourself all psyched out over for nothing.

And I would agree with you, except for the fact that I always wind yarn the same way, but this morning I was doing it in a different manner, and it was that configuration of the yarn twined around my fingers that sparked the 'oh, I've been here before' sensation.

For many years, I tried to keep track of these events to see if something "important" happened that same day that I had the deja vu, or if there was some pivotal moment in the weeks afterward. I never did discover a pattern.

So I am left with a vague sense of foreboding, that there's some event on the horizon.

Or that could just be the crazy talking.

Bloody 'ell

I had a fantastic idea for a Tuesday post. I was surfing teh inter-web, at bunches of different sites, from blogs I check to a few random click-through ads. (Something I seldom do.)

As happens frequently, I was distracted by something. Look! Over there! Shiny! Um. Where was I? Oh yes, distraction.

I didn't write down my idea. Nor did I open a Firefox tab to have a Blogger post page open. Nor did I open any one of at least 3 word-processing programs on the computer and type myself a reminder. And the result of this lack of brilliance? Heck if I can remember what I wanted to write about.

When you hear that shout at 3 AM, that'll be me, waking up and remembering what I wanted to say. I'll write it down on the pad of paper I keep at my bedside, with a trusty pen that lives on my nightstand. Unfortunately, whatever I write down when wakened from a sound sleep is gibberish, so you, dear reader, will never get to read my amazing brilliance.

Why, yes, I *will* be buying some Ginko at my next health-food store run. What? That won't help? Are you sure? Look! Shiny!

Now, what was I doing?

Shutting Up

Growing up, my sisters and I were forbidden to say certain things. Not just slang that my parents didn't like, but also a few more common expressions. In the interest of being polite, and learning to speak like someone who had more than 3 brain cells to rub together, they strictly enforced good grammar.

"Shut up!" was one of those things we weren't allowed to say. Too rude. I thought it was dumb, but complied and didn't use it in front of them. (Which is not to say that I've never said 'shut up'! I did, and I still do from time to time.)

These days, there is commercial running on television for one of the fast food joints. It uses the phrase, "Shut UP" and it irritates the living shit out of me. It is offensive. And annoying. And loud. I finally understand why they didn't want my sibs and I to say 'shut up'.

To get around it, we'd say 'be quiet' or something similar. After I learned Swedish, I'd use the very vulgar phrase in Swedish that meant something along the lines of 'keep your damn mouth shut' just because I could.

But now, I think if I had a child, I'd probably enforce the same rule.

I'd like to put on my Spinster Grammar Aunt hat (oh, wait....I never take it off, so no need to search for it) and write a letter to the offending fast food joint. It might go something like this.

Dear Multi-National Conglomerate and Perpetrator of Obesity in America:

Your current advertising campaign for the double super-huge bacon cheeseburger with enough fat for an entire village in one serving is offensive in the extreme. Having the actors shout "Shut up!" at their growling stomachs makes it appear as if this phrase is acceptable in polite society. You should not need the Spinster Grammar Aunt to point out that this is not the case.

Additionally, the growling stomachs sound quite a bit like belching; again, not acceptable in polite society. The Spinster Grammar Aunt is forced to wonder if your marketing and advertising departments, and indeed the executives who approved this campaign, were raised in an outdoor environment with lupine companions. This would seem the only plausible reason that this commercial runs nearly continuously on both network and cable television.

Please, before Western Civilization completely deteriorates, remove this commercial from the airwaves forthwith.

Very Truly Yours, et cetera,

The Spinster Grammar Aunt


*sigh*

Unfortunately, sending such a missive just might get me committed to that mental institution that takes in such cranks as those who insist upon good grammar, good manners, and the like.

Knots

I'm not a patient woman.

That is one of the many reasons that I've decided to not have children; I think I'd be a terrible mother due in part to my lack of patience.

Somehow, though, when it comes to unraveling knotted yarn, I can put aside my impatience and gently, carefully, slowly work it out. If anyone you know is into the fiber arts and they tell you they've never had to work out a knot, they're either lying or just learned how to knit/crochet/spin/cross stitch/whatever yesterday. Because the rest of us have had the dubious pleasure of having a ball of yarn deteriorate to a mess like the above, or somehow ended up with a knot in whatever the current project is.

I joined yet another social networking site; this one for knitters and crochet fanatics. Ravelry has quickly become someplace that I'm spending lots of my online time. The cool tools they've got!

Part of the fun has been cataloging all of the yarn that I own. Which has forced me to spend some time organizing that which I own, again. Finally, finally!, I have it separated into a more reasonable manner, and can find what I'm looking for quickly in the boxes. Hilariously, though, I don't need to look in the box to see what I've got; I can look it up on Ravelry. Also entertaining is the fact that among the bits and pieces that I have leftover from various projects are small balls of yarn that I haven't the faintest idea where they came from, what they are (i.e. brand of yarn and or fiber content...are they wool? Cotton? I don't know). In some cases, what I used them for is also a mystery. Did I make E's scarf with that burgundy and black? What the heck did I use this ugly blue stuff for?

They're all in the bottom of the box, waiting for there to be enough of them to make a stash sweater or other project like it. I used up some bits and bobs in that blue/green/yellow hat I made a week or so ago. But the ones that I didn't use were in sad and sorry shape indeed, knotted and a mess. I spent nearly two hours winding each of them carefully into a nice ball, so that when I want to use them, they aren't in worse shape.

Yarn, apparently, is like the wire hangers left alone in a closet; abandoned to its own devices, it tangles and multiplies, making a general mess of itself. I'm astonished that it took me nearly two hours to work through all that stuff, and that I did it without getting stressed or anxious, or angry. There have been times, when faced with a mess of yarn to untangle, I've chucked it rather than mess with it. A hot pink yarn that was scratchy and cheap particularly comes to mind. I remember spending about 2 minutes trying to find an end to the yarn, where I could start from, and failing that, tossed it in the trash.

The knots I get from stress, in my back, shoulders, and neck, are not so easily worked out. I have a magic massotherapist that I see when it gets bad, and it takes him usually about the same amount of time--2 hours or thereabouts--to get rid of them for me. Usually over several days.

Several things about that are interesting to me. One, I can't fix those knots myself. I don't care how much time you spend in a hot shower, or lying with a heating pad, or even sitting in the sauna, nothing gets rid of those sore spots like my magician. Two, although he uses the same terminology, as in, "Man, your shoulders are knotted up!" there is no untying of the muscular structure. Three, it requires as much or more patience to work out those knots than it does the yarn knots.

I see the massotherapist on average about once a month. One of the indulgent things that I do for myself. Well, sometimes its indulgent, and other times it is a necessity; there have been times when I've walked in to his office barely able to move my neck, or with my shoulder so torqued that it is twisting my whole back into a bad shape.

What he does, deep tissue pressure massage, hurts. Make no mistake, this is in no way similar to a massage at a spa. This isn't a relaxation massage per se; what Mr. Magic does is therapeutic massage. Sometimes, yes, I do leave his office more relaxed, but usually I'm hurting as bad or worse than when I went in, just in a different way. Which, of course, begs the question, why on earth would I continue to go see him? Because several hours later, or sometimes the next day, you feel like a million bucks, pain free.

I wonder if my yarns feel the same way, relaxed and soothed after being untied, and placed in orderly color-coded rows. I know it makes obsessive-compulsive me feel better that they're finally organized.

Doppel

They say everyone's got a twin. I was either walking down memory lane today, or just doing more people-watching than usual, because I saw them by the hundreds.

First, walking in to the gym, I saw a woman with a young blonde child who was a ringer for my cousin J. She passed away more than two years ago. I stopped in the parking lot, took a deep breath, and looked again. I've had that happen before, where I think I see someone who I know isn't with us anymore, and when I look again, they look nothing like my loved one. This woman could have used J's driver's license and gotten away with it.

I can't help but wonder if that will ever, ever, not hurt as much as it still does. Because I saw her and almost called out, "Hey cuz!" and realized all over again that she's gone. Damn.

Then while working out, I was on a treadmill where you overlook the main entrance from one story above, like you're the eye in the sky. I saw my Swedish Papa who IS still among the living, a duplicate of what he looked like almost 20 years ago. It wasn't him, of course, and I know that, but man, this guy could have passed for him.

What gives?

Wi'chew

I apologize most sincerely for inflicting this upon you, because you will leave this post with an obnoxious pop song stuck in your head.

I'm also putting on my Spinster Aunt Grammar Police hat.

You got me trippin', stumblin' flippin, fumbling
Clumsy cuz I'm fallin in love
You got me slippin, tumbling, sinking, fumbling
Clumsy cuz I'm fallin in love
So in love wit you

That's the chorus to Fergie's latest pop song, Clumsy. I've seen the video twice, randomly surfing the TV channels, and I am hearing the bass line in my head for hours afterward. I like Fergie's music, understand that. But that last line, "so in love wit you" has me all fired up, for a couple of reasons.

First, it is miserable grammar/pronunciation. Folks who don't enunciate make me nuts. "Wit" instead of "with" is really one of my pet peeves. Another one is people who mispronounce the word frustrate, but that's a story for another day. Wit is intelligence. Wit is savvy. W-I-T is not an appropriated shortened form of with. Grrr.

The other reason this irritates me requires a bit of backstory. You already know I'm a music geek. I don't think I've ever talked about my singing here; I no longer sing in public, but to not sing would be to not breathe. I sing all the time. With the iPod. Without the iPod. With the radio. Not with the radio. With the muzak in department stores. At full fortissimo or as quiet as a church mouse. I have a halfway decent voice. I'll never be Maria Callas or Mariah Carey, with their astonishing ranges, but I can carry a tune, and carry it well. From the time I was 12 years old until I left for Sweden at 16, I studied with a vocal coach, in addition to singing in my school's choirs.

My coach had been an opera singer with the Met, once upon a time. She taught me wonderful things about breath support and projecting volume. She was also at considerable pains to teach me how to sing the words 'with you' so it didn't sound like you were singing the word 'chew.' The choir director at school was the same guy from 6th grade all the way through graduation; this was one of his fussy things too. Thanks to both of them, this is something I notice in popular music, and when it is done incorrectly, it makes me grind my teeth. It isn't that hard to do; any singer should know this little trick. All you do is soften the "t" sound, almost as if you were going to drop it off all together, and emphasize the 'you', being careful not to introduce too much of your Midwest twang into it and making it sound like 'yew'. Oh, wait, that Midwest thing would just be me. Anyway.

Fergie-Ferg has a lovely voice, is a talented songstress, and produces extremely entertaining music. This just makes ME nuts, it is a psychosis, I know. The song really sticks with you, which speaks well for it being a major hit for her. And that means that I'll be hearing it everywhere.

If you need me, I'll be over there in the corner in the fetal, rocking and grinding my teeth.

clumsy 'cause I'm fallin' in love..in in love
so in love
wit you

grrrrrrr

Ciggy

Once upon a time, I smoked.

Cigarettes, silly, not anything else.

Not a whole lot, you understand, but enough. It started as a "look at me, I'm so tough with my beer and cigarette" thing, and grew into a "well, everyone else does it, so why not." I'm not suggesting that intelligence was ever a factor here.

Shortly before I met DH, however, I quit. I was very ill the summer after I graduated high school, and stuck in bed for most of that summer. When I began to feel better, the first time I went out with friends and lit up a cigarette, I started to hack and cough. I put out that cigarette, and have only had a stray puff here and there in the 14 years since.

It isn't a habit that I miss, most of the time. Every now and then, on a stressful day, I'll walk past smokers outside and think, "ah, that would be nice." Middlesis smokes, but I can never talk her in to giving me a hit off of one of her cigarettes if I'm around her when I'm having a day like that. Which, all things considered, I'm grateful for.

I despise the smell of cigarette smoke. With a burning passion. (No pun intended.) Ex-smokers tend to be the most nazi-like enforcers of "no smoking" signs, which is pretty hilarious and hypocritical, but somehow I think ex-smokers are particularly sensitive to the smell.

About a year after I quit, I was diagnosed with asthma; the decision to either breathe or smoke was a pretty simple one. Its tough to do both if you're an asthmatic, although I do know asthmatics who smoke.

When Oh-hia-ia passed the smoking ban a year or so ago, I was ecstatic. Finally, no more smelling like cigarette smoke after an evening at a bar with friends. No need to strip down in the garage after bar-hopping, lest the smell of the cigs be carried in the house with the clothes. Enforcement of the law isn't perfect; there are still a few places where you can light up and no one will say anything. The state does not have near enough folks to enforce the law; it is the local health departments who are responsible for checking up on restaurants and bars. Which is ridiculous, really, because personally, I'd rather that the health department continue to insure the cleanliness of the area kitchens than play cigarette cop. The law isn't without its flaws.

Over the past two days, I've been smelling cigarette smoke IN my house. Ugh. And double ugh. I can not figure where in the living hell it is coming from. DH, the son of a pretty heavy smoker, despises the smell worse that I do; but he says he can't smell it. Now we already know that I'm mostly out of my mind, but phantom smells? Really?

It is strong enough that it woke me this morning; spraying air-freshner (something I hate to do) only covers it for a short while. Lighting the two aromatherapy diffusers I have hasn't helped much either. One is sitting next to me as I type, filled with a combination of lemon, lavender and cedar essential oils. It isn't helping sitting less than a foot away from me, I still smell the cigarette smoke. And we aren't talking about that first inhale from a cigarette, which could still appeal to me; we're talking about the smell of a week-old overflowing ash tray. I say again: ugh.

I can't open the windows...besides being too cold outside to open the house up, we've plasticized the windows, something we do in the winter to help keep our heating costs down. Even the sliding glass doors have been covered over with a shrink-wrap-esque sort of material. Baking more cookies is out, because I only smell it in the bedroom, which is on the second floor. So that wouldn't help either.

As if I needed more proof I was out of my mind......


On something not exactly related, I have sent in the entry form for my first ever 5K race. It is on New Year's Eve. I choose this race because it is at a location that is entirely flat; and I think it is a good place to start to attain my eventual goal of running in a marathon. What was I just saying about being out of my mind? Just nod and smile at the crazy woman in the corner.

Imagination....working

Charles DeLint is one of my favorite authors. He's a Canadian fella, and I want to live in the city he writes about. His complete literary works are listed on his website. If you've never picked up anything of his, I highly recommend it. Just don't start with Onion Girl, because you'll be completely lost. All the rest of the novels stand well on their own.

He writes what he calls Mythic Fiction. Yes, this is fantasy, but it isn't ever really about a world far away. Rather, he writes about a world, our world, with a small twist. His characters sometimes have psychic perceptions, but mostly I think about his writing as the world that exists at the corners of our eyes. You know how you see something fantastic out of the corner of your eye, and when you turn to look, whatever you thought you saw is something completely ordinary?

Happens to me all the time...it is my imagination, which I like to think is still as active as a child's.

DeLint has a story about Balloon Men, which look like those myriad plastic grocery bags blowing around in the wind that litter our whole planet. When you aren't paying complete attention, all you see is the plastic bag rolling around.

The rain of the last few days has dried up, and we had a very windy day on Tuesday. Leaves, some of the last of the season, swirl in the wind in tiny vortexes, like eddies in a river current. At the end of the fall, the last leaves that litter the ground are brown, unlike the extraordinary colors we see earlier in the season. The uniformity of color is not matched by uniformity of size and shape. So these swirls of leaves look like little animals or perhaps one of the fey when you catch them out of the corner of your eye.

The first time I noticed them was driving in the car, and for a brief moment I thought that something was about to run in front of the vehicle. It was broad daylight, and I actually tapped the brakes before I realized that it was only leaves. Since I wasn't on a busy byway, I slowed the car to watch the wind pick up and gather these groups of leaves, and then scatter them again with the next gust.

If I was a talented writer, I'd find some way to weave those leafy beasts into a short story. Instead, I imagine what they might be.

Disturbed

Listen closely.


Hear it ?



Tick tock.


TICK TOCK.



TICK-TICK-TICK-TOCK!!

That's my biological clock ticking.

I had a very disturbing dream that reminded me of the ticking of the biological clock rather more forcefully than I would have liked.

I was with my parents in Florida (something that hasn't happened for more than 10 years) and they were living in a community that was a floating community. Of boats, sailing ships, houseboats, floating platforms. First off, the 'rents live in Oh-hia-ia, not far away from me. Secondly, this whole floaty community was far too hippy-dippy-artsy-fartsy for my parents to ever live in or consider living in. But it was a dream, so weirdness goes with the territory, right?

I found myself holding a baby, a baby girl, with a pink onesie and pink and white hat on, and she was the most beautiful little Latina, with dark curls and dark eyes, chubby little hands and kicking feet. She wasn't MY baby; she was a baby that my parents had adopted. From Guatemala. My parents who are more of an age and a mindset to retire than to adopt an infant.

I felt an urgent need to protect her (from what, I have no earthly idea, there was nothing scary or threatening in the dream) and to care for her, moving in to a boat a few slips down from my parent's place and taking over the full-time care of the baby. Who never seemed to have a name, incidentally, which you just add to the list of weird things about this dream.

I don't have a maternal bone in my body; never have really wanted to have a child of my own, and I'm not a patient woman. I think I'd make a terrible mother. I have a temper like a house on fire, and hello, I'm a train-wreck at this particular point in my life. I've got no business whatsoever having or trying to adopt a baby.

I woke up very disoriented, and sure that something was missing, something was wrong, until I realized that I don't have a child and it was just a dream. It took me a very long time to settle back in to sleep. I'd like to be able to blame this dream on my sleeping pills, because I tend to have excruciatingly vivid and weird dreams when I take them, but I didn't take the sleeping pill. So this is a creation of my own subconscious. That, perhaps, is what disturbs me most of all.