Thanksgiving 2013

Usually, we host Thanksgiving. This year, we went to my aunt's place. Which is this place:

The building is not a pillar of festivity.

But my other aunt is living here now,  too, while working on her PhD and teaching at UH, and she subscribes to gourmet cooking magazines. It was excellent. Our only jobs were to drink cocktails and eat and float in the hot tub. Am officially a fan of eating at someone else's house for Thanksgiving.

The man wore a real shirt.

The sisters drank margaritas and tried to stalk old boyfriends on the internet, but got sidetracked by online book sales.

We had so much cheese.

Zenny ate with my grandmother's silver baby spoon.

PIE.

Food coma.

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"Here, take a picture of me for my birthday, and make me look good."
"Move your head. Chin down. No, to the side more. Lean over a bit. Stand up. Angle your head just a bit -"
"OMG TAKE THE PICTURE."

click

Hey, not bad. I will have to yell at people for all my pictures.

The man and I hit the mall. We failed to find an interview blouse, because everything is lace cut-outs this season ("hired in the front, fired in the back"), and hit the Japanese bbq joint for lunch. 

I never remember to bring toys. Play with butt wipes until the rice comes, sweetie.

A pint of Gyu Kaku later, I had the brilliant idea to find a Doctor Who shirt for my interview outfit, which Hot Topic did not have, so I flailed at the sales girl about how nobody will hire me in My Little Pony - I'm a professional - and we went to see Hunger Games, instead.

Jennifer Lawrence's face in the elevator scene made the movie. The tweens in next row applauded.

Zenny found it all very relaxing.

When the family came home from school, we made a caravan for our favorite Chinese restaurant. I got to ride on the motorcycle. Pushed the visor up and smelled the trees and ocean and car exhaust. Did not get a bug in the eye.

Mongolian beef the second-best food there is.

So this was the first birthday I've enjoyed in a very long time. Take-home lesson for adult birthdays: find a co-conspirator, start early in the day, do all the things, don't feel bad about it.

First ornament

A tiny sweater with a fancy "Z".

This at the cost of one of my precious harmony needles, a victim of my negligent couch knitting and Leif's pointy needle-snapping butt. 

Hair overhaul

Competency surging. Brunettes are better at purchase orders, probably. 

Well, it is mostly brown. It does have random horizontal streaks of blonde that the man missed when he squirted the dye on wildly. But he dabbed the stains off my ears with such tenderness. I can show people my neat pink ears when they cringe and grab their own hair sympathetically.

Coming up - pencil skirts, hair repair, and interviews.

Also: baby in handknit sweater! 

Oh, this child. She's smart and sweet and on the move. 

Mittens

I made two of them. But you'll have to trust me on this, because when I put them on to take a picture, not only could I not get both my hands in the shot, I couldn't even turn my stupid phone on. It does not have auto-timer, like my camera does, and my camera is ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE ROOM.

So here they are.

based on Spring Foliage mitts

It is mandated by the Council of Hooded Figures that all knitters of mittens must present at least one shot in the "Twilight hands" pose. Acceptable substitutions for apples include snowballs, acorns, pinecones, fall leaves, and invisible adorable things. I had an apple, but I ate it while taking the first picture. And just the one hand. 

I have to wash and block them anyway, never fear, garbage-mitts recipient.

So, TA DA.

Next time I'm making finger flaps or sewing magic techno-thread into the finger pads.

update: see? All better.

the downside of being an unwitting bird rehabber

Bill Weasely died this morning. I uncovered the cage, and he had his head under his wing, refusing to get up. I poked him gingerly, because he bites, and he just rocked a bit and ignored me. He looked up when I picked him up and offered water, but after a bit of gasping and shaking, it was clear he was on his way out. I put him in a basket with a warming pad and took him outside to see the trees. He died looking at the sky.

He was old, and he was disabled, so it was the gentlest way out for him. He'll get a burial in a tissue instead of being chucked over the fence like the things the cats bring in.

Birds live as long as mammals, but they die pretty abruptly. If you want to teach your kids about the fragility of life and importance of death rituals, get a bird. Cats and dogs at least tend to make a big deal about dying, and have organs large enough to tape back together at the vet's. They are sturdy. Hercules and Xebo are 19 years old, and still peeling our eyelids open at 3am, hoping for an early breakfast. Hercules has a problem with salivation, and last night he sat on my pillow, scratched his chin with a hind leg, and scattered drool all over my face. If anyone is spraying drool or vomit or poop, it usually ends up on me. It is my special skill.

Unlike, say, bird rehabilitation.

Goodbye, Bill. You were a handsome redhead, and I hope you had lots of healthy babies in your youth.

It rains

I'm having a lot of feelings about things. Fall used to be my favorite, but now it marks every crossroad I've found myself at. I remember, and regret, and write mental letters.

Oh well.

Went to a very windy bbq. Got excited about stuffed foxes at Target. Made myself sick by knitting in the car. Ate a pizelle. Researched grad school programs. Searched for jobs. Read by glow light. Got mad at George R. R. Martin again.

Yep.

LIVING THE LIFE

near-death candy wrapper

With every kid, there comes that first heart-stopping moment when something bad happens. For Leif, it was when he was 3 months old and we were almost washed off a cliff in a flash flood while driving at night in a storm. With Gavin, it was pneumonia when he was 2, speeding to the emergency room while he went limp and blue in his car seat. Zenny tried to choke to death yesterday. All kids choke on something eventually, this one was just a bit longer and harder to fix than I've had to deal with before.

My mother drinks coffee out of cups the size of small vases, then leaves them half full all over the house when she has to jump up and leave for work. After the mad scramble to get everyone in shoes and out the door yesterday, I plopped down on the couch with the baby and said, "Phew! Ok. Time for a cup of coffee." She reached over my shoulder and pulled one of my mother's giant mugs of cold coffee onto us. After stripping the couch, loading the washer, and changing clothes, I felt entitled to a mini Kit Kat bar. We sat on the floor and I put on the season finale of Breaking Bad, drinking coffee and eating candy while Zenny rolled on the floor next to me with her stuffed ferret. She rolled onto her belly, and then gagged. I swiped her mouth and felt a fragment of plastic, which slipped further down her throat when I touched it. She started choking, arching backward. I grabbed her and did baby Heimlich on my knee, searched for the fragment with my finger, moved it just enough for her to hitch a breath and scream before choking again. I hung her upside down and banged her back, swiped and pinched and finally, FINALLY, she choked it up enough for me to pinch it, and I got the damned thing out of her tiny mouth. I slapped the computer closed and we sat on the couch while she panted against my chest and I clutched her. Holy shit, kid. The little piece of plastic was from the corner of my mini Kit Kat wrapper, about half an inch square. I carried her on my hip and vacuumed everything, in case there were any other bits of plastic around. While she nursed and napped, I opened the computer back up, rewound the episode I had been watching, and saw that a choking scene had been playing the entire time we had been fighting with the piece of plastic.

I was feeling wobbly from the last of the adrenaline when I buckled Zenny into her seat and propped her outside the bathroom so I could get ready to pick up the kids from school. I was putting on eyeliner and talking to her about the inadvisability of trying to die, when suddenly my heart started gulping in my chest and everything went black. I leaned up against the doorway of the bathroom and thought, well, I'll fall to the side, and at least she's buckled up safe until someone finds us, when my heart started beating again and the world came back into focus. Not ok, heart. My aunt had a heart procedure last year, my father had one just before that, and my mother is on heart pills. It puts my infrequent mis-beats into a more worrisome light. When I was a teenager, they hooked me up to a treadmill and tried to trigger it, and when I was in grad school I had to wear a heart monitor for a couple of days to try to catch it, but they were wasted efforts. It lies in wait.

So that all sucked.

HOWEVER. Zenny is happy, and the afternoon's parent/teacher conferences confirmed that the boys are great. Leif's teacher even claims he is "soft-spoken", which was a bit of a surprise to us, since this is the kid that narrates his world in sound effects. Boy, he's got her snowed.

KIDS.

Halloween 2013

In 10 years of trick-or-treating, we've seen a picture of the economy in stop-motion. The over-the-top haunted constructions dwindled into dark doorsteps and a few stalwart holdfasts. Then a ripple of buckets left unattended with "take 1" signs, the smallest of efforts to participate in lean times. Then neighbors rallied and put up tents for pizza and music and a communal cauldron of candy. New crops of military families appeared where homes had to be sold, and lights began to go on again, with beefy young men getting spirited with beer and horror props. This year the kids were chased around by a man in a hockey mask and fake chainsaw while his buddies facepalmed in the doorway with cups of beer and yelled, "Dude! The babies! You're scaring the little kids!" over the braying roar. The candy haul has diminished from two pillowcases to half a plastic pumpkin over the course of a decade, but the life is back in the neighborhood. 

My kids are weenies about putting their hands in pumpkin guts. They draw the designs on with marker and then run away when I pull out the knives, leaving me to carve them with a face full of mini Snickers poached from the trick-or-treat bucket. The system works for me.

We left my mother and aunt to hand out loot and ran off with the herd of children. The cousins only had to be reminded a couple times not to complain about the candy going into their buckets and not to wail, "PENCILS?!" at the neighbor across the street. You would think that after 10 years, that lady would get tired of ungrateful kids yelling "PENCILS?!" at her, but she is on a crusade.

Zenny opted out of her stroller and finished the tour of the neighborhood on my hip, arm outstretched to lead the way, calling, "YEAH YEAH YEAH." She's pretty great.

Also, she likes me better. Ha.

The boys unloaded their loot. The small cousin sprawled on the floor and crammed candy grimly into his face, promising that he planned to throw up - until we promised to take away his candy; the large cousin started rummaging everyone else's piles and trying to wheedle away their best bits. We broke it all up with The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and glasses of milk while I chucked the baby into bed.

It was a good year.