New York update #1

Am in the snowy wonderland of New Windsor, NY. Stealing a few moments on the house computer to write the happenings while Leif re-files grandma's taxes.

Day 1

The non-stop night flight was smooth, the kids slept the whole way, and Leif rolled off of my boob while I was dozing and left my bare tit hanging completely out in the open for about an hour. You're welcome, toilet-goers.

After hanging out at Sue's house for an hour and letting the kids roll in a knot around the floor, we trooped out to grandma's surprise birthday party. The surprise: about 30 friends and relatives pointing cameras at us when we walked in the restaurant door with her. The waiters were surly and cursed about us in Italian, Sue didn't give a shit and bossed them around anyway, Mike and Rob (big brother), cleared their throats at each other in greeting, and I almost passed out face-first into the shortcake during a bout of exhaustion.

Here's the main cast for the bulk of the vacation: Sue (sister), Shane (sister's husband), Stacy (tiny brother's wife), Rob (not-tiny brother), me (looking gigantico and trying to stay upright), Mike (man-person), Barb (mil), rabble of young cousins.

Day 2

I put to work my vacation plans of hiding in the couch with my knitting. In the afternoon, Rob took us all out bowling, and nearly got into a fight with a pack of drunks in the next lane who yelled at us for having kids within their 15-foot staggering zone. Sue and I kind of hoped he would beat them about the head with his police badge, but he didn't. I almost swatted Rob's bum about 6 times because he was wearing the same colors as Mike and they look the same from behind, if slightly photoshopped to different scales.

Went home and ate ribs. Someone put the bones out on the porch, and someone else screamed when they looked out and saw a raccoon eating them. I tackle-shoved Barb out of the way and pressed my face to the glass because OMG THERE WAS A RACCOON EATING RIBS! Probably the greatest thing I have ever seen.

Day 3

Mike twisted his guts like a sick dog and spent the day vomiting. Leif objected to this and spent the day screaming around my knees. Gavin disappeared into the basement with his cousins, emerging 8 hours later covered in paint and glitter. Went to Walmart with mil and Sue, became addled by practically-free prices of everything, slipped $20 into mil's purse after she insisted on paying for the stack of $2 baby pants and discount Valentine's Day candy I pitched in the cart. Went home and dragged the kids around on the frozen lake, rattling them over lumps of ice until they were scared and cold and wanted to go in for soup. It started to snow. The kids fell asleep. mil and I watched Mike to see if he would die.

Day 4 - today

Mike did not die. He ate toast and sat vigilant during nap-time while mil and I drove into the snow to a local yarn shop. Became ridiculously excited about yarn. Saw deer in the woods near the lake. Forced all the children into snow pants and dragged them outside. Leif stumped around with determination, tried to shovel the walkway, and contemplated the skies; Gavin ran inside 4 times for new mittens, tried to faceplant into 3 inches of snow, and ate off the ground with his face with his cousins.

Demonstrating proper snow-trekking form

Exploring trade-off between freezing to death and seeing imprints of own face in snow

Muffled acoustics are interesting

It is snowing. The baby naps on my lap. I woke up to discover that the little yin-yang earring I've been wearing in my upper ear for 3 years has disappeared. Perhaps it's time to let the hole scar over.

vooom!

Bags packed.
Coats ready.
Infink be-booted.
Child no longer vomiting.
House-sitter secured.
And then there's me - limp on couch burning with fever and trying not to hurl myself inside-out. Bright side: only 200 calories consumed today!

Am planning on piggy-backing through terminal until the man slings me onto a luggage cart and then tips me out and rolls me down the gateway. Tempted to scoff in burly Scottish manner and brag about being able to hoist three bags and two children and just tip my head to vomit into potted plants without complaining, but then I might end up having to do it.

12 hours to go. Healing powers, go!

Sick day

There is no better time to get violently ill than 2 days before a big vacation. Overcome by preparations (and blue jello), the boy spent the night vomiting. We all hunkered down with our ears back for the day, sucking on vitamins and hoping the Sick would pass over us.



First attempt at reading a cable chart: Durrow for Gavin. After the initial ripping and rage and filthy expletives, a brain connection snapped into place right from my puzzle-solving facilities to my pleasure receptors. Goodgiddygods. Love.



Sick days require cookies. I didn't have enough of any one thing for any particular recipe, so I made one up.

Holly's Chocolate Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Lumpies

1 1/4 c. flour
1/3 c. cocoa
1/2 c. quick-cooking oatmeal (use steel mill Irish oats if you hate your guests)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
5 tbs softened butter
2 tbs shortening
2/3 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
big handful cranberries
half bag chocolate chips

Normal one-bowl cookie construction: blend together butter and shortening, beat in sugars, add egg and vanilla. Add flour, cocoa, oatmeal, baking powder, and salt all at once, mix quickly until just blended. (It was nice and sticky for me, but if it seems too crumbly, throw in a spoonful of sour cream or yogurt or more shortening.) Add cranberries and chocolate, stir. Drop in lumps on nonstick cookie sheet, bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes. Ta daa! Crispy chewy brownie cookie awesome.

Leif has a big love for cookery. He spends most of the day making brews on the patio with his litter box, sneaking in to squirrel away pots and pans and ingredients from the cupboards. By dinner we have to clean soups of toilet paper and goldfish crackers out of all the farberware. With care and attentiveness, he helps me whisk and sauté, making little taps to clean the utensils on the edge of the pot before putting them down.



Mike is beginning to mutter about me cheating on him with Chef Ramsay. That is why we can't understand anything Leif says yet; it is all a series of angry bleeps.

Very fine sort of slow cozy family day.

mitten truce

Found a vintage pattern for flat-knit mittens, and all is forgiven.





There are four fattening pregnant women in close orbit, so why am I fiddling with mittens instead of using my mandated Wednesdays off to sew homely dainties? Because during daylight hours I am used for this:



I suppose I could foist them off on beds and clean laundry, but then I would not be covered in cats and babies. Quandary.

small stirrings

It has happened, I have felt the first stirrings of excitement about our adventure to New York next week (!). Yes, the baby may go boneless and scream for 7 days straight; yes, we may all get chapped and dribble snot and contract airport viruses; and yes, I may be defending my bottom against commentary about my need to still eat - but there may be a moment where I can close the door on it all and stand outside at night and let the snowfall stir that small still bit of me that I left on Black Mesa. Maybe revert for just a minute to the girl in pink rubber boots and a too-small blue parka who searched the close emptiness and imagined towering beasts just out of sight, enjoying being right there inside herself for a little bit.



Maybe?

winter weekend

No food. Rummaging in the backs of the cupboards, we pulled together bits and scraps and forgotten boxes.

I made cereal candies, which the kids poked at suspiciously. Gavin opted for back-of-the-fridge yogurt, Leif ate a butt wipe.



Covered up the smell of the neighbors' ciggies and spliffs with a loaf of beer bread, made with the new batch of home-brewed honey beer.



Slim pickings are good eating.

Knitting occurs in the in-between bits, amidst mid-morning coffee and evening popcorning. Yesterday, a mitten was born.



Then I remembered that I hate double-pointed needles. Also the thumb is too stubby. Mittens are stupid and I WILL NOT MAKE ANY MORE MITTENS. Pulled out the super-squashy Dark Horse yarn to soothe mitten rage, despite the fact that it was an absolutely hideous color.



variegated yarn = gross

Knitting not doing so well. On to sewing instead.


To Do List

As soon as these illustrations are done, I will run back to the embrace of my sewing cupboard. There are several pregnant women who have been holding in babies while I stall for time.

Realized that I forgot to show off the manly quilt, which has already been in use since Halloween, and blessed with cat barf. Thrice. But you can't tell, because it is black! I win!



Still needs some more quilting.

In the works: the Deer Valley blanket. Has been basted and slowly hand-stitched for ages now.




note: these are the stairs of doom which we keep cartwheeling down. Points detracted for endangering my first-born offspring by perching him on the landing.

Nowhere near finished: the Anna Maria Horner quilt - last year's Mother's Day gift to myself. But the top is done!



Yes, will be very productive when I get a break from all this stuff I'm doing.

The power of trend

Finally bought a drapey cardigan, as per insistance of women's fashion magazines.



It is too long in the front and too short in the back and tries to hang in the toilet, but has garnered praise and fanfare from co-workers (who said I looked "very Esquire" - slightly worrisome), and caused three still-acne-pocked college tourists in backwards caps to follow me like ducklings while picking up the post. I may have to start wearing winter boots over my pants and cinch enormous belts over my t-shirts.


In other news

* Paid for the meat-hammer threats by getting my heel stuck in my pants and falling down the stairs, flinging my keys up over my head and into the banana trees in attempt to free hands and grab railing.

* Sub and janitor have begun saying "bah-rah?" in response to everything, including my threats to bludgeon them with a stick.

Pet Project cont.

Step 2: wiping clean the ipod. GONE are the wailings and gnashings of my youth, GONE are the landmines that stud the landscape of my shuffle, GONE are things called love and presences still lingering and standing by you. I am reloading Pinkie with upbeat hipster librarian tracks - Gogol Bordello and Modest Mouse and the Decemberists and Franz Ferdinand and the like. Will brainwash self with barrage of perkiness.

Recap: Step 1 is adrenoline and excitement; have decided this will be our trip to New York in a few weeks. If the drive to Washingtonville with the speedy [ex]mother-in-law through New Jersey traffic doesn't do it, a ride on the subway with a child and a nazgul should. There is also IKEA, Anthropologie, Trader Joes, and the Lindt store to fall back on. This failing, we can go to the grocery store and get goose-bumpy about gallons of milk for under $9.


come to me

stashes, wool, and bruises

The latest from my needles:




The incognito cowl from knitty.

red stickers

It is with sadness and resignation every year that I watch the winter wear pass through the clearance racks and away from my life without justification to savage the racks of delicious squashy sweaters with consumerist abandon. Not this year! Feeling wanton and unburdened after hefting two garbage bags of old clothes into the thrift store donation bin, we became addled by the "oh please just take them!" sales in Old Navy, piling ourselves with two dollar winter wear and slavey-children hoodies. I pulled a lovely black woolen pea coat from the rack and gasped when I saw it was the last one in my size, then gasped again when I put it on and looked like a tired starlet from one of the library's trashy magazines, then gasped a further time when I saw that it was down to $19 from $90, then hyperventilated all the way to the register.



Must never confess to my mother that I am wearing asthmatic-murdering wool, but can't help myself. If the children start gasping like fish around me, I will put on a plastic garment bag and pretend it is a stylish dampness repellent. Got home and realized that the infink still does not have a pair of shoes. If this continues, we will have to rubberband his pant legs shut over his feet when we get to New York. Poor little shoeless child.

Also he is very pathetic because he toppled off the bed in his sleep and gave himself his first goose egg.



And Gavin says I don't post enough pictures of him, so here is the boy not eating his dinner of cheesy broccoli, chicken in balsamic reduction (boiled salad dressing), and garlic sandwich bread (the french bread burned into charcoal while I was making iced coffee):

Hopes Fulfilled

Not even a week into the new year and already one of my wishes has come true; rabid media obsession. Having watched all 6 seasons of Peep Show within a 5-day span, the man revealed that he had uncovered movies and an entire other series starring my new boyfriend Robert Webb (sorry, Jack Black, you're out), and I just about had a stroke.



In further rolling-over-of-the-yearness

My new ambition this year is to stop being a hedgehog and force myself to uncurl, even if it means being jabbed in the underbelly by the sharp finger of love. Step 1: trick myself into falling back into school-girl-type love with the man, instead of just the comfortable limb-type love one grows into after 13 years. According to a new self-help book I have flipped through, this can be accomplished by adrenaline-producing activity within close proximity to the intended object d'affection, causing the brain to associate the hapless bystander with crazed excitement. Activities like sky-diving, or rolling a hobo. Neither of which I can do with a man who has fallen down the stairs and is limping around howling like a big ginger wookie. Maybe I can threaten him with a meat hammer to the knee to get things going.

Gossip-ish

"It's called 'misinformation'," Officer Cleanshaven said, tapping his nose at the wary teenagers loitering outside. He came in and crouched down to eye level to whisper across the desk with me about breaks in the Case of the Grievous Graffiti, and I did my usual cop-induced transmogrification into Happy Cat, unburdening every rumor and suspicion I had heard rumbling around the library for the past week pertaining to the vandalism. He gratified me by making scandalized noises and a little dance of excitement before running out to follow the new leads. Felt like fast-living C.I. in a crime drama. Spent the rest of the afternoon scanning barcodes. Oh, well.

New Year 2010

On Oahu, the boy was dashing through the smoky firecracker-riddled streets with his cousins and waving sparklers beneath the blossoms of the neighborhood's illegal aerials; on Maui, the infink snoozed peacefully and the cats tipped their ears at the distant pops of the odd firework while we curled sleepily together like hamsters in front of a terrible action film. Mike called his family as the ball dropped in New York, and we admired the blue moon from the front patio.



We were too drowsy to fetch the champagne, but flipped to the rerun of the Times Square countdown, gathered ourselves up in the couch blanket, and for the first time in 4 years I was properly kissed as the clock struck midnight. That's good for a start.


Pau vacation

The man flew off for the weekend to fetch the boy back from grannie. As he left, I dragged myself from my bed of pain (the bathroom - yay food poisoning) to wave goodbye. "Be safe!" "I will!" and he fell down the stairs.

While I have been trying to apply the burners and attempt to meet my illustration deadline, the infink has:

Stripped off his clothes and dunked them in the Physics Bucket (cat litter tray with an inch of water)
Learned to ask for water with a sweet lilting "baba?"
Dumped the water on the downstairs neighbors
Peed on the couch
Gone into a frenzy of gollum dancing
Laughed maniacally singing "Willaby Wallaby Woo" for every animal in his books while he mimed smashing them to death
Eaten part of a used diaper


He also escaped via cat door,


and then tried to bash in my head with a jug.


He's a deliciously wicked little nazgul, and I loves him.

Will be happy to get the security-man back so I have a human shield between me and the axe murderers again.