Pet the yarn

Although I'm not done (by a long shot) with the shawl/stole I'm knitting for myself, I've already got the next project planned.

Actually, truth be told, I've got the next twelve or sixteen projects planned, but for the sake of my sanity, I'm attempting to do ONE AT A TIME.  It is a little hard for me, but I desperately need the lesson in patience anyway.

The next in line is called April Showers scarf, and it is a knitted lace pattern that looks well within the scope of my ability.  I found the silk yarn the pattern calls for on Ravelry, from someone who was willing to let it go for $8, rather than the $26 price tag at Purl Soho.  Sweet!!!  The lace weight yarn the pattern calls for is likewise a ridiculous price, and so instead I bought a lovely lace weight from Knit Picks, a very reasonably priced online yarn store.

I got it yesterday, and it is as soft as a baby's skin.  Feels like what I imagine touching a cloud would feel like, if we could indeed do that.

Everyone I've run into since the moment I got it into my hands has been asked to "pet the yarn.  C'mon.  You know you want to!"

It was only after I said that a few times did I realize it sounds vaguely obscene. 

Ladies and Gents, welcome to 2009

This is a storytelling post.  Unfortunately, unlike the other storytelling posts, this story has no end.  Yet.

Laundry might be the bane of my existence.  It is never, ever, ever done.  If things are running along swimmingly (which, um, when, exactly does that happen?) I would start a load of laundry in the morning, allowing it to run mostly while I'm at work, because it is loud, and obnoxious.  That load would be tossed in the dryer when I got home, and folded before I went to bed.  Then, there would not be what the Fly Lady calls  "Mt Wash-More."

Instead, what actually happens is I manage to wash about 3 loads a week, and the clean clothes get tossed on the couch in the living room, and I fold them on Saturdays, catching up with whatever is left over then, too.

One weeknight last week, I came home and took off my coat, hat, scarf.  Have I mentioned lately that it is bloody freezing?  Anyway, I turned away from the closet, and I noticed that a sock had fallen off of the couch.  It makes the house look even messier than really is, and bothers my OCD-urge to have everything put in its place, even when its current place is not where it really  belongs.  So I walked over and picked up the sock, and that, my friends, is where the true trouble began.  Because that innocent black sock was soaking wet.  Not damp from the dryer being out of order, but soaking wet, dripping wet.   From the ceiling above, a drip, drip, drip from a crack we had repaired before we moved into this house.   Dammit.  There went my planned evening of a few glasses of sangria, dinner at a nearby Mexican place, folding the laundry, and going to bed.

Following the trail of water across the ceiling led us upstairs to our bedroom, which is the largest room in the house.  The wall in question had a desk up against it, and we pulled that back to discover a patch of damp drywall, damp enough to push our hands through to the insulation behind.

DH, once upon a time, was a firefighter and had to pull walls down searching for any errant flames, so he attacked the wall and pulled out insulation that was dripping wet, just like my sock.  Bugger.

We pulled off about a 3 square foot area of  that drywall, and discovered a hell of a mess.  Behind the soaking wet insulation was not a pretty picture.  I know almost nothing about construction, so my terminology may be inaccurate, but sometimes that's the way it goes.  The studs that frame the house are covered with a composite material, which looks like particle board.  I know, I know, it is not particle board,  rather, it is an insulating material that is between the pink fiberglass insulation INSIDE the house and the aluminum siding, OUTSIDE the house.  The wall joins up with my neighbor's section of our duplex and creates a 90 degree angle very close to where we ripped all that wet drywall off.  With a flashlight, we took a peek at that angle, and discovered a wall of ice between the aluminum siding and the particle board stuff.  You can reach into it, run your hand up and down that ice wall.  

What I don't know about construction could fill a library full of novels, but I do know that ice shouldn't really be *behind* the aluminum siding.  We had a contractor come the next day, someone we have worked with in the past, so we trust him.  

I have no idea what he did to fix it.

The ice, however, remains a problem, because it is still there.  Whatever contractor J did, it was to keep more water from coming into the house.  The ice that is already there has to go out the same way it came it; via the path of least resistance, and as liquid.  Which means that we will be cleaning up water for quite some time to come. 

Sigh.  

In the meantime, two rooms of my house are torn up, furniture shoved away from its usual spots, and, while not quite the hassle and expense that the leak has caused, something that adds little bit of fuel to this already messy fire.....

My laundry still isn't done.

Heroes a little closer to home

This is a storytelling post.

News stories about the possible nomination of Hilary Clinton to the position of Secretary Of State in the Obama administration abound.  Senator Clinton, should she truly be offered the position, and provided that she accepts, will not have the distinction of being the first female Secretary Of State. 

That honor belongs to Madeline Allbright.

When I'm asked to list my heroes, she's always on the list, along with Nelson Mandela, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ghandi, and a few other fairly predictable folks.  The unexpected people on that list (well, maybe it is unexpected for you, not to me) are my parents.

It wasn't until I was in my early 20s that I realized that they're both...words fail me here.  Amazing?  Brave? More giving than the average person?  Yes, all of those.

As a college graduation present, my parents and I traveled to Palm Springs, CA, spending a few days there before driving on to the Grand Canyon.  Among the many things we did there, one of the more memorable was a ride on the Colorado River.  Not through the famed Grand Canyon rapids, but rather from Page, Arizona, to the entrance of the canyon.  Billed as a "smooth water" canoe trip, it was peaceful, beautiful, sun-drenched.  

At the end of the river trip, the bus which had delivered us to Page picked us up for a return trip to our lodging at the Grand Canyon.

Our bus driver was a woman who studied the Anazai Indians, and had a deep love - and an extensive knowledge - of the Grand Canyon.  As she drove, she used the bus's PA system to regale us with stories about the native peoples of the area, information about geological formations, and what it was like to live in the housing the Grand Canyon (i.e. the national park service) provides for staff.  

I was sitting midway back, and had turned off my Discman to listen.  All of a sudden, the bus lurched to one side and then stopped.  I glanced up at the windshield, but all I saw was a cloud of dust far ahead of us at first.  As the dust settled, a horrific accident scene spread out in front of us.  An old lead sled, like a 1979 Monte Carlo, was in pieces on the road.  A motor home had its front mashed in, and there was wreckage everywhere.  

The bus driver asked that we stay in our seats, and asked if anyone had any first aid training.  She then asked for volunteers to help the injured.  Of all of those people on that bus, it was my parents who stood up, got out of their seats and volunteered to help.  As both of them got off the bus, they turned to me and in chorus said, "You stay here!"  Which made me smile a little in the face of such tragedy, because they're usually so much on the same page, thoughts in tandem.

The bus driver came back and asked if anyone knew emergency radio codes.  As DH (although then he was DB) was a firefighter for a very long time, I was used to listening to the scanner and familiar with the radio chatter.  So I sat in the driver's seat and directed the first responders to our location.

I don't remember how many people died that day.  All of the occupants of the lead sled.  The car disintegrated around them.  The people in the motor home survived, but with some injuries.  I don't remember what those injuries were; cuts, contusions, bruising, but not much that was serious as I recall.

While I talked to the authorities, a woman came to the front of the bus and began taking pictures through the bus window with her disposable camera.  I was deeply disgusted; people are such vultures.  I asked her, "Why in the HELL would you want pictures of this?  People died here."  Her response?  "It is a piece of history."  I glared, and snarled, "Lady, it isn't your history, and it is ghoulish and insensitive."  She sat back down.  Good thing, too, I mighta smacked her if she kept it up.

But the contrast in reactions to the accident is what has stuck with me.  My parents: got up and helped.  Other people on the bus: rubbernecked.  How could you not find that admirable?

In case I hadn't mentioned it lately: I miss them when they're off in the sunny south!

A derth

Normally, I have no trouble a'tall coming up with things to write about.  Lately, though, I've got no inspiration.  

Maybe that's not quite the word I'm searching for.  I have inspirations, they just don't get written down, and then when I sit down in front of the computer, there's a giant blank in my head.  I'm spending almost no time in front of the computer at home in the evenings, which is when I've done my writing for years now, so not much gets done.

I'm tired.  Not depressed-tired, thankfully.  Bone-weary tired.  And I don't even have kids!  On evenings when I'm able, I've been heading to bed around 8 pm, which is early, even for me.  There are weeks where I've got something going on every night after work, and then the 8 pm bedtime slips later, sometimes until 11.  Then, I'm exhausted for the next several days.  I'm getting more sleep than I have for years....last night, somewhere around 7 hours.  Uninterrupted sleep is something I've not gotten since I was a teen, and I dream of a day when I get more than 3 hours of sleep at a stretch, but I'll take the 7 hours, happily.  And yet, I'm still tired.  I find that utterly mystifying.

I saw something I wanted to write about the other day, and the image keeps haunting me, so I'm going to take a stab at it.

I get to spend some time on a college campus, and I treasure that time, mostly.  People-watching is perhaps my favorite sport in the whole world.  Since I was a very young child, I've made up stories about the things I see, chance interactions between people that are completely out of context for me.  I never know these people, and I'm possibly reading more or less into the interactions I see.  But that is part of the fun, if you ask me.  Students entertain me a lot.  Drama, drama, and more drama envelop their daily lives, hormones and emotions running so high.  I remember well that time in my own life, when everything was both fantastic and catastrophic all at once.  Students annoy me too, I want to bemoan their lack of courtesy, not holding a door open for someone behind them, or purposefully blocking a hallway, or being overly loud when it is completely unnecessary.

Like every other season all year long, fall is unpredictable in Oh-hia-ia.  We can have beautiful days where the temperature hovers just below 70 (~19 or 20 C) with very low humidity, not a cloud in the perfectly autumnal blue sky, or we have days where it is dark, grey, overcast, 40 (4C), and raining.  I treasure those beautiful fall days, when there is a crisp chill in the early mornings, and the leaves are their riot of fall color, scarlet, orange, yellow.  You learn to dress in layers, because while the morning is chilly, by the time you're heading home it is too warm for jackets and long sleeves.

Late one afternoon, I saw two students standing right in the middle of a sidewalk, embracing one another.  They were polar opposites; the girl was short, chubby, cherubic cheeks, blonde, dressed in jeans an a dark long-sleeved shirt, colors so muddy that they might have blended into the background.  The boy was tall and skinny, dark curly hair, dressed in the colors of the Ohio State University, scarlet and grey, shorts and a t-shirt.

He was cradling her, so gently, rocking back and forth a little.  I wasn't close enough to hear them, so I imagined that he was comforting her after a difficult test, or just a rough day.  They pulled apart, still holding on to one another, and he said something to her.  She nodded, and he pulled her close again, and I was reminded of the way we comfort one another at funerals, when words are incredibly useless and we feel so helpless.

I watched as they stepped back from one another and walked away from me, down the sidewalk.  They walked close to one another, but not touching, not holding hands, which is why I assumed that they weren't lovers, the body language hadn't indicated to me that they were anything more than good friends.  

I've been haunted by that simple image of kindness for almost a week now, it pops into my head from time to time.  I wonder; were they friends who hadn't seen one another for a long time?  Were they a couple, and breaking up?  Or was I right, she just had a hard day?  

Why do I keep thinking of those two?  It was a mystery to me for a couple of days, but then I realized that I was so moved by what I saw for two reasons.  One, it was an incredibly intimate moment, a private moment.  They had no idea I was watching.  I hasten to add that it was not with malicious intent that I watched, just idly curious.  Two, you don't often see such kindness on display.  

How sad.

So I challenge you.  Do something extraordinarly kind.  For a stranger, for someone you love, for a friend.

American Civics 101

This is the Tuesday post, brought to you a day late...or a week and a day, since I didn't post one last Tuesday.  You'll see why.

The envelope was your basic #10 business envelope, with a plasticized window for my address to show through.  No indication that this was about to throw a monkey wrench (aside: WTF is a monkey wrench, anyway?) into my life.  The return address said "County X Clerk of Courts."  My heart rate sped up a bit...had I forgotten a city parking ticket, and this was now a warrant for my arrest?  Because they do that if you accumulate enough of them and you don't pay the fines.  I don't remember any recent parking tickets.....

When I ripped it open, however, discarding the rest of the mail into a messy pile on the floor of my car, it said Petit Jury Summons.  Huh, I thought.  I wondered when they'd get around to me.  I've heard people complain my whole life about jury duty, and always claimed that I would serve with nary a complaint when it eventually became my turn.  Jury duty lists are given to the Clerk of Courts from the rolls of registered voters.  A co-worker teased me, "That's what you get for voting!"  'Scuse me for exercising some of my (few remaining) civil rights, I snarked back.  I have been registered to vote since turning 18, and have voted in every election, EVERY ELECTION, since then.  It is a sacred right, as far as I am concerned.  If you don't vote, then don't whine to me about the state of democracy, or your taxes, or anything else that relates to living in this country.

Ooops, tangent.  Sorry.

There was a small white postcard in the envelope, and it promised dire consequences if it was not returned within 5 days.  Since I only check my mailbox about once a week, I was very worried that I'd already missed said deadline.  The mailbox is NOT attached to my house, rather a community group of mailboxes and I'm lazy.  Its too far away.  Accordingly, I filled out the requisite info (name, address, phone numbers) stuck a stamp on it, mailed it, and promptly mostly forgot about it, because it was something like 6 weeks away.

I wrote the date down on the whiteboard calendar in my office, but somehow the notation that I was supposed to serve jury duty never made it into the crackberry's calendar.  While talking to my assistant about big upcoming work things on a Wednesday, I turned to face the whiteboard and realized that no, I couldn't do what I wanted to that Friday, because I had to be at the courthouse.  (heeee, look @ me, I have an assistant!  OK, truth is that I share her with the rest of the office, but still. I so love being able to say MY ASSISTANT!)

This could not really come at a worse possible time for me.  New (relatively, I've been there about 4 months) job, and the biggest thing I'm responsible for is looming large on the horizon.  I love our legal system, and I want to participate in the judicial system in a manner that does not require me to be handcuffed.  But the timing suuuuucks.

When I got to the courthouse that Friday, the jury waiting room was nearly full.  I snagged a seat, pulled out my knitting, and knitted contentedly.  Unlike many other public waiting rooms, this one is nice.  Semi-comfortable chairs.  Soothing decor.  Kinda reminds me a of a doctor's office.  A very very busy and large doctor's office.

After a while, a gentleman with a county ID badge explained the events of the day as they would unfold.  We would go to the judge's courtroom, where he would instruct us about our responsibilities.  Should take about an hour.  'Lawyers,' I thought with amusement.  'Can't do anything without giving themselves a chance to be long-winded.'  After that, there was a questionnaire we were required to fill out, and then we would be free to go.  The questionnaire was not meant to pry into our personal lives, but it was important that we answered every question and answered every question honestly.

The county courthouse was built during a time that America was very impressed with herself, and felt that public buildings should be monuments, beautiful to look at.  It is a glorious structure, marble, granite, and gleaming hardwood everywhere.  I know from the days when I worked for ye olde evile bank as a runner of papers to and from the courthouse that those marble stairs inside the courthouse are slippery.  The judge's courtroom was on a lower floor than the jury waiting room.  I walked carefully down the stairs, taking my time.  The marble balustrades aren't much help if you need support, because they're slippery too.

The courtroom had more grandiose carved wood, and row after row of spectator benches, that reminded me of pews in the churches of my childhood.  Just the kneelers were missing.  It seems so cliche' to say that the courtroom was packed, but it was.  Every single seat was taken, and they even dragged in red leather chairs from somone's office for the standees.  As I looked around, I realized that one of the prosecutors was a good friend from my high school days.  I'd forgotten that he was a DA.  I like to joke about everyone in this town being connected by only 2 degrees of separation, instead of the six that people usually claim.  Its a small place.  There's a good chance that I know a handful of the people in the jury pool as well.

So much of what 'we' as a society know about the legal system is drawn from Law & Order, LA Law, Ally McBeal, insert popular legal show name here.  So it is vastly entertaining that what unfolded next was drawn directly from every court scene you've ever seen in every movie & TV show you've ever watched.  The bailiff was an adorable guy in a really nice suit, sharp red button-down shirt, contrasting tie.  He introduced himself, explained that the judge would be along shortly, and asked us to be patient.  Loudly.  A few seconds later, he shouted, "XYZ County Court of Common Pleas, the honorable Judge Blah Blah presiding.  ALL RISE!!"  Like obedient schoolkids, we did, and because I'm so short, I missed the judge's entrance.  But I heard the bang of the gavel, and the judge's announcement that court was now in session.  "Please be seated." The judge then proceeded to introduce every. single. player. in the courtroom.  The DAs.  The defense attorneys.  The defendant.  The court reporter.  The bailiff.  His secretary from down the hall. (No, really, he did.  That's not me being smart.)  

He spent considerable time explaining to us where 'the media' would be during the trial.  "Media?" I wondered to myself.  "Why?  Wasn't I summoned for civil cases?"  Nope.  Turns out that this was a Very Serious Crime, and we should expect that the media would be involved every step of the way.  

He read the charges against the defendant, 26 (!!!!) of them.  He explained the legal-ese, although I knew most of the terms.  I'm a geek like that.  He then read off the list of reasons that you could be excused from the pool of jurors for this case.  If you knew the defendant.  If you knew any of the people the defendant was accused of committing crimes against.  If you had a recent death in your family.  If you were a cloistered member of a religious organization, or Amish.  If you were addicted to alcohol or drugs.  That one got a chuckle from the crowd; the judge said he rarely had anyone raise their hand for that exclusion.  Wonder why?  Each person that raised their hand for a particular reason was asked to state their name, and then remain when the rest of us went back upstairs to fill in our questionnaires.

Then he spent more than an hour explaining what our duties would entail.  Those pews are hard, and dammed uncomfortable, too.  I started fidgeting, but so was everyone else in my row.  I also had to move my head constantly to be able to see the judge, I was far in the back of the room.  He gave us the line about the questions we had to answer not intending to pry into our lives again.  I think that was the 3rd time someone said that to us.

When he excused us to go back upstairs, I discovered that he'd kept us for 2 hours.

The questionnaire was an exercise in hilarity, because so many of the questions were directly related to my personal life.  

DH was a volunteer firefighter for many years, as were his brother and father.  I promise, this is related, and important to the narrative.  When I met DH, he'd just broken up with a girlfriend who had complained about the time he spent with the fire department.  Noted; don't bitch about the fire department.  Seriously, though, I was very proud of his service to our microscopic community.  That makes it sound like rescuing kittens in trees were the extent of his duties, but truth is that he did actually fight fires.  Many were the times when we were first married that I'd wake to the sound of the tones on the scanner going out, and he'd roll out of bed in the middle of the night.  I'd listen, rarely able to go back to sleep until he returned, unless I could discern that the call was BS.  You could tell when it was a big deal, because the dispatchers would be screaming bloody blue murder, and the first firefighters on the scene would be more serious, more focused, and much, much louder when it was for real.  Only once in all of those years was I worried for his safety, and if memory serves, that was before we were married.  I trusted the crew he ran with, and more importantly, HE trusted them.  With his life.  I respected the hell out of those guys.

So pages 4-15 had questions about firefighters.  What was my opinion of them?  Well, geniuses, I married one, so guess they're OK. It was that same question, asked several different ways through all of those pages.  Did I know any firefighters?  Did I like them?  Had anyone I known ever been injured in a fire?  What did I think of the first responders when that person was injured?

Not trying to pry into my personal life, eh?  Really.

Then there were questions about arson, and here's snag #1 to me serving on this jury.  DH studied to take the state's arson investigator test, and while he was doing that, I read some of the textbooks.  Yeah, yeah.  I'm a voracious reader of nearly everything.  Otherwise known as a dork.

There were questions about my regular reading material, my major in college, my minors, my interests outside of my occupation.  Why did I participate in whatever hobbies or sports those were?  Not trying to pry into my personal life.  Uh-huh.

Finally, the rest of the questions were about the death penalty.  Now, my opinion about the death penalty is probably not what you'd expect from a flaming liberal.  I'm all for it.  In fact, I think it should be expanded to include several crimes other than murder.  Which ones?  Serial rapists for one.  Repeat offender pedophiles for another.  Why?  Well, I don't think that violence against women is taken seriously enough in our society.  Largely, I don't think that you can 'rehabilitate' someone who has raped six women.  How long should we keep trying?  Until he commits his tenth rape?  His 20th?  The pedophiles should be pretty self-explanatory.  If there is a hell, then I hope that a special place is reserved there for the people who repeatedly sexually assault children.

It also irks me a whole lot that after somone is sentenced to death, we spend umpteen millions on warehousing these people whilst the appeals process drags on and on and on.  My tax dollars, that could be far better spent on programs that cut crime rates, are instead spent on the folks sitting on death row for 25 years.  And how, exactly, is that justice for the victim?  Their family?  Your sister/cousin/uncle is dead, and the person convicted of the crime sits on death row for 15 more years longer than the vic got to live until the appeals process is exhausted?  Are you kidding me?

Right, tangent again.  Sorry.

I left the courthouse and headed back to work, managing to get at least half a day's work in.  They kept me hanging over the weekend and most of the day on Monday, finally calling me late Monday afternoon to tell me that I had an 8.30 AM appointment for individual voire dire, which is the legal term for the opportunity that both prosecution and defense have to question each juror, making sure that the chosen 12 will be fair and impartial.

More waiting.  More knitting in waiting rooms.

When they called me into the courtroom, the judge introduced himself to me again, and he said, "I note on your questionnaire that you identify yourself as an atheist.  Will you swear an oath?"  I smiled; this particular aspect of atheism has always amused me; atheists don't want to swear that they'll tell the truth, "so help me God" because God isn't real.  I have no problem promising to tell the truth, and so I told him that yes, I would swear an oath.  

Duly sworn in, I sat in the jury box, facing the judge.  He sits higher than the rest of the courtroom, but I was nearly eye level with him, because the jury box is elevated too.  The prosecution was to my right, perpendicular to the judge's chair, and the defense was behind them.  I faced the judge the whole time, not looking around, because I didn't trust myself to look at the prosecutor I know without sharing a smile or smirk with him.  There ARE times and places where being my smartass self are just not appropriate.

My friendship with the prosecutor was the first thing the judge brought up; I had stated on my questionnaire that due to our friendship, I wasn't sure that I could be a fair and impartial juror.  I'm more likely to believe him, trust his statements, than I am for anyone else in that courtroom.  The judge lectured me for a moment about how he puts aside his friendship with various lawyers when they're in his courtroom.  I didn't see the point in fighting/disagreeing with him, although I do disagree.  

So then we moved on to my job, and the big event on the horizon.  He asked me a few questions about it, and what would happen if I wasn't at work while it was going on.  He asked how long I've been doing this for a living.  I told him that since it is the first time around for me with this event, I didn't know how they'd cope without me, but I didn't think it would be easy for them.  He asked several times about the dates, when was this going on?  Did I stutter, or was he just not paying attention?  I don't know.  I again restrained myself from being a smartass.  It is hard!  (thanks, Dad, for instilling that particular part of my personality!!)

He called the lawyers up to the bench, and they huddled and whispered for a few minutes.  My prosecutor friend kept nodding his head, although I don't know what they talked about.  Deaf, remember?

When the lawyers walked away, the judge told me that they'd decided to excuse me for cause, that missing my work event would clearly be a hardship.  (woot! doing the conga inside my head!) He told me, though, that he would really like to question me further, because my answers on the questionnaire about the death penalty fascinated him, but the court didn't have time for that today.  He seemed regretful about that.  I am too, I would have loved to hear what he wanted to ask about.

Released from the purgatory of waiting rooms and anxiously sitting on pins & needles, worrying about how the hell I was going to tell work that I'd be away for several weeks while this thing plays out, I walked back to my office.  

Thus endeth my brush with the legal system for now.  I hope I do get the chance, someday, to serve on a jury, to be a part of the amazing process that is the judicial branch of government.  Just not this week!!

The Bluest

Blueberries are in season in Oh-hia-ia.

That one, simple statement is enough to get a mile-wide grin on my face. I love blueberries. I love them lots. I'll eat them just until I make myself ill, or just almost to that point. Blueberry muffins. Blueberries in my protein smoothies. Blueberry sorbet. The only thing that I'm not particularly keen on is blueberry jam. Meh.

The muffins, though, those are such fun. I use an old recipe, one that has a story behind it.

When I was a kid, we would spend part of every summer in a cottage on a lake in Michigan, a place that is a long haul from my Ohio home. A place whose name is magic to my sisters and I. There was no television. An old radio that was usually off, unless we wanted a weather forecast, sat in the living/dining room. The telephone was a party line phone. Really. Even well in to the 80s, the line at the cottage was shared with several neighbors. An oddity, but we loved it, because no one could reach us there. At home, from time-to-time, a ringing phone would pull my dad out of bed and into the night for a customer of his business, or some disaster happening there. At the cottage, no one could get in touch with him for 4 AM emergencies. My sisters and I loved that.

The very air there is magic. As an awkward teen, I always felt like I might actually look pretty when we were there. Certainly I felt much less of a need to hide behind a made-up face, the flaws that I saw in my skin were somehow diminished while staying at the cottage. It was a place where the rules were relaxed. A. Whole. Lot. Junk food we weren't allowed to have at home was fair game at the cottage. We wandered much further afield than we were allowed to at home. No one nagged about chores, homework, or stuff that needed doing at the cottage.

The family who owned the place was a large extended clan, presided over by a matriarch who was a force of nature. The last time I saw her before she passed away, I was in my early teens, and she was 90-something. She was a hell of a lady. The muffin recipe is hers.

It was written on a scrap of paper, in Palmer Method handwriting (hers, of course) taped to the inside of the kitchen cabinet where the flour, sugar, and baking spices are kept. In my mid-to-late teens, for several years running I tried to remember to copy it down so that I would have it at home, but I didn't remember until the summer that I had a blank book with me most of the time.

We were usually in Michigan for at least part of the blueberry season, but not always. And sometimes blueberries show up in the grocery store in the midst of winter, frightfully expensive and completely irresistible. So I needed to have a copy of my own, because it is my favorite way to make blueberry muffins.

That said, the recipe has two faults, as I see it. One, the muffins have never risen like I think they ought to; there are no muffin tops on the tops of these muffins, even with a decent amount of baking powder called for in the recipe. Two, the blueberries have a tendency to sink to the bottom, which kind of irritates me. I get around that these days by putting 1/2 of the blueberries in the batter, and sprinkling the remaining half over top of the filled muffin tins, which means that at least a few stay floating on the surface until they're baked.

Grandma ____'s Blueberry Muffins

Beat two eggs until foamy. Add 1 cup sugar and continue beating until the eggs are light yellow, adding 1 heaping tablespoon of softened butter. (The original calls for shortening, ick.) Add 1 cup milk, 2 cups flour, 3 teaspoons baking powder and 1-1/2 cups blueberries. Fill regular sized muffin tins 2/3 full, after either greasing well or lining with paper liners. Bake at 350 F (175C) for 15-20 minutes. Makes approximately 12 muffins.

I like making them in mini-muffin tins, bite-size. That recipe makes roughly 4 dozen (give or take, YMMV) mini-muffins, and the baking time is shortened. I just keep a super-close eye on the minis, sometimes they take 10 minutes, sometimes longer.

When I made them last week, I discovered too late that I had no milk, so I used vanilla yogurt instead, and I used my Really Raw Honey because I have an aversion to granulated sugar. I ran out of my regular unbleached flour, too, so about 1-1/4 cups of the flour was whole wheat pastry flour, which I thought would work better than the bread flour, or the cake flour, that were also in my pantry. They were still very tasty. Someday, I will remember to try using baking soda or a combination of baking soda and baking powder to see if they will rise like I think they should.

Eat them with abandon, the small amount of butter in them means that they're relatively low fat. If you can pick the blues yourself as opposed to buying them in the mega-mart, so much the better. Be warned, blueberry stained fingers are part of the fun.

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.

Moon Over Malaga

This is a storytelling post, something that's sort of a new experiment.

Late in the summer last year, my NYC sister came to visit us. Her plane was scheduled to land late on a Friday night, so as soon as we got the call that she had pushed back from the gate at La Guardia Airport, we left my parent's place to pick her up. It takes about the same length of time to drive from the 'rents house to the airport as it does to fly from NYC to Oh-hi-ia.

As we got on the freeway, my mother said to me, "Did you see it? Its beautiful. Behind us."

I had no idea what the hell she was talking about; I imagined at first that she meant an accident behind us on the freeway, which confused me, because when was the last time you saw a beautiful accident? But when I turned around in my seat a gazed out the back window of my dad's very big SUV, I saw an enormous golden moon, hanging low in the sky. I can never see a moon like that without remembering the very first time I went to Europe, and a night that perhaps had a hand in shaping the adult I became.

I was a lucky, lucky kid. We weren't well off, but we didn't want for much either. During my 8th grade year, the school announced a trip to Europe, for a fee, of course. I don't remember why I wanted to go so badly, especially when none of my friends wanted to go. But I talked my parents into the first informational meeting, and they agreed that I could go. I'm sure there were rules about keeping my grades up and various other things tied to actually being able to go on the trip, but time has stolen those recollections away from me.

We left the states via JFK Airport in New York and flew to Madrid, Spain. It was the first time I'd been so far away from home, something I was super-excited about. We spent several days in Madrid before heading south, into Seville, and then Spain's Costa del Sol, and the crown jewel city of Malaga. By the time we got to Malaga, we were used to hotels that weren't fantastic and very odd-seeming food. A pecking order among the 50 or so kids on our bus from schools all across the country had been established. I had made friends with a boy and a girl from Delaware, and even made a few new friends from my own hometown, with kids I'd never speak to at home.

There was a boy; isn't there always? I was 14 during this trip, young, to say the least. I just realized that most of the rest of this post is going to horrify my mother (Hi Mom!) who reads my blog from time to time. Oh well. Now that I am over 30, she can't get angry about such youthful transgressions, right? Right?!?

The boy was 16-ish, maybe 17. He was from Oregon, and I had a huge crush on him. He seemed to like me as well, or at least we enjoyed one another's company during the small amounts of free time we had. This was all pretty platonic, things like sitting together on the bus or checking out a piece of art in a museum after the rest of the group had moved on.

The chaperones from my hometown were particularly vigilant about their charges; we rarely had unsupervised time. When we did, we made absolutely sure that we were up to positively no good whatsoever.

The first night in Malaga, they allowed us to do whatever we wanted, provided that we didn't leave the grounds of our ocean-front hotel, the first and only decent one that we stayed in the whole 2 week trip. That was difficult, riiiight. The hotel had 3 bars, one on a terrace overlooking the beach, and most of us had rooms facing the ocean with balconies that seemed palatial.

Several daring souls left the compound and ran to a grocery store across the way, buying booze, wine, soda and juice to mix the booze with and munchies. We weren't particularly sly most of the time, but no one was caught.

The boy and I had agreed to meet, and I spent some time sitting on the beach with him and some of his schoolmates, having earnest youthful conversation and sharing some Sangria. It grew dark and a huge moon, larger than I had ever seen, rose in the sky and we all watched it silently for a while. It was breathtaking. It seemed as if you could see every crater on the moon with the naked eye.

I couldn't stop looking at it. My new friends poked fun at me for losing the thread of the conversation several times as I gazed at this wonder, teasing me about my inability to hold my liquor. It wasn't the first time I'd ever had a drink (ummmm....yeah, let's not tell that story) but it was the most I'd ever had to drink in one sitting. I felt like the night was full of possibilities, adventure untasted, limitless potential. A high-flying sort of feeling. Was I drunk? I don't think so; if I was, what happened next sobered me up in a hell of a hurry.

Eventually, we all grew tired and the boy and I headed back to the hotel, leaving his friends behind. He took my hand as we walked back to the hotel, and my heart pounded. Proof positive! He liked me too!

I thought that this might be the chance I'd been waiting for. To tell him that I had a crush on him, that I sort of thought the sun rose and set with him. Unfortunately, as soon as we walked back into the hotel, one of my roommates spotted me and came running up to inform me that a third roomie, C, was drunk and we needed to do something about it before the chaperones came by for a 1 AM bed-check.

The boy and I followed my roommate to the elevators, and as it rose to our floor, I had the sensation that my stomach had stayed on the ground floor. Possibilities flew right out the window. I certainly wasn't going to be telling him how cute I thought he was with my roommate in the elevator and a crisis of epic proportion looming on the horizon.

Underage drinking was something that could get you sent home, no ands, ifs, or buts, and anyone who conspired to cover it up was just as liable. We knew that, and yet, we were convinced that we could hide it. When we got to our room, on one of the upper floors, we had a Suge Night moment when my boy pulled a guy off of the drunk girl, someone trying to take tremendous advantage of her. He didn't get tossed off of the balcony, but he sure did leave our room in a heck of a hurry.

My fella left soon after, with a rueful grin that I know was reflected on my own face for lost opportunity.

None of us knew anything about sobering someone up, other than what we'd seen on TV. We had no coffee to pour into her; it was superlate and the bars were closing, plus the moment of the chaperones would come knocking on our door was creeping closer. We'd be in nearly as much trouble for being out of our rooms so close to curfew as we would be for drinking. We thought about trying to put her to bed, but with the rest of us wide awake and still chattering, she wouldn't stay in bed. We sat her in a corner and told her to keep her mouth shut, answering any question they asked her directly with as few words as possible. She was a chatterbox, and we told her that if they asked why she was so quiet, she was to tell them that she was very tired.

I was worried about my own neck too; I'd had plenty of sangria on the beach with the boy and his friends, who had much more liberal chaperones. They were allowed to drink if they wanted. I, on the other hand, stood as large a chance as C did to get sent home. The fact that I was merely buzzed and she was completely shit-faced wouldn't have made a damn bit of difference.

The chaperones admired our view when they came at last to our room, seating themselves on chairs on the balcony. We thought they'd never leave; we all managed to work the fact that we were allll soooo tired into the conversation, but they weren't taking the hint. Amazingly, C kept silent, and no one questioned her. When they left, we all were nearly hysterical with relief.

Age and experience tells me, now, that they knew. They had to. I'll bet they laughed themselves silly on the way back to their own rooms.

But that night was the first time I acted as a caretaker for anyone outside of my own family, a pattern which continues to this day. We bundled C into bed, finally, making sure there was a trash can near her in case she got sick, and I found aspirin or Advil or Tylenol for the headache she was sure to have in the morning.

Parties in high school had me doing more of the same, watching out for friends, keeping a cool head about myself. In Europe, my junior year, I wasn't too worried about consequences. My host parents were OK with me drinking, knowing the kids I ran around with and knowing how little trouble I could really get into in Sweden. When I came home from Sweden, my friends were all horrified at the amount of smoking and drinking I'd done; and then, at some point during the middle of that schoolyear, everyone else discovered drinking too. I worried, I watched. At least until Senior's Week, the week we graduated, when I behaved like any other teen, sure I was immortal, and all of my friends were bullet-proof.

We're all lucky that we're not dead of alcohol poisoning, really.

I continue to be the caretaker. Most of the time, that's OK with me. I wonder, though, if my life would have taken a different course, if I'd be the same adult that I am now, if when informed of C's drunken-ness that night so long ago if I'd said, "Hey, figure it out. Not my problem. The boy and I need to talk. I'll see you later."






Oh, and if you're wondering.....nothing ever happened with the boy. Never so much as kissed him. I don't remember even holding hands with him at any other point during the trip. Never saw him again, either. Obviously, it wasn't meant to be.