diversion tactic

And here are some more hats. Madness.

vanity and amputation

A gross post. For posterity. Because they obviously need to know these things.


One of the things I never really liked about myself was a birthmark - ok, a mole, a big, hideous mole - on the back of my head. It is the reason I have shrunk from hands plunging into my hair and hairdressers wielding pointy combs, and why I secretly fear that someone will offer me a million dollars to shave my head on television and I will not be able to do it. I am of Nordic descent; we are blue-eyed, white-skinned, sunburned, and speckled with rich, meaty, knobbly moles, so as to better sneak up on spotted baby seals and, maybe, to provide snacks on long journeys. Thanks, viking ancestors. I had mine clipped off today, starting with the monster growing out the back of my head - uncreatively dubbed "Voldy". (To be fair, perhaps not quite as large as a second head, but at least the size of a pea. That is huge when you are only seeing something with your fingers. Just ask my high school boyfriend. HAA HA. I am vain and mean.)

I also had a couple on my neck, not so nightmarish. Before:



Aw, happy moles are happy. Ignore the green throttle-marks left by my cheap jewelry.

I imagined it would be a neat and tidy process, and I would trot in to work blemish-free and smoothy-smooth. Doctors use Photoshop to do cosmetic procedures now, right? But no - there were scissors and needles and scalpels and cauterizing rods and stitches and bandages involved. "Fine," I said, "Take them off with nail clippers if you have to." My doctor put me up on a table, cut a bald patch out of my hair, stuck me with a needle, cut and tugged and pressed gauze to my head as blood ran down the back of my neck, and asked for sutures. "My first stitches!" I said. "Wait, no, come to think of it, when I gave birth I think I got about 8 of them. But that doesn't count." "Nah," she agreed. What? Why did we just agree on that? I needed my henparts sewn up after being torn open 3 inches by the blunt force of someone's head. That should probably count more than having a mole nicked off. When she was done, I asked to see it, and it was... oh god. I looked at it, with my eyes. And it really did look like Voldemort. Only Voldemort has Ralph Fiennes underneath, and this really, really did not.



Yes, I had to resort to lolcat for that. Also, thank you internet, for giving me this while I was at it:



Also true.

Anyway, the rest of the nicks weren't so bad, and they shooed me out into the waiting room with a bottle of antibiotics and a giant bandage taped to my forehead. I fluffed my locks to arrange them over the bald spot, and a giant hank of hair came out in my hand. I looked around in horror at the empty room and then buried the hairball in the garbage like it was someone's tiny dog I had sat on.

Pulled up to work, and an odd hiss emanated from beneath the car. Specifically, from a big gaping wire-laced crack bulging in the side of the right rear tire. Oh no. I do know how to change a tire, just as I know how to drive stick, start a fire, behead a zombie, and punch a shark. I did not have to do it, however, because my janitor is awesome and he loooves me and I bribe him. I did help lug the busted tire around to the trunk, though, and got greasy dirt all over my work pants. To cheer myself up, I peeled my forehead bandaid off in the mirror, expecting to see something magical and cute, and shrieked at the big gruesome hole cut in a jagged star and burned black in the middle. By the time I walked in to work, I really wasn't feeling too good about the bandages, clumps of missing hair, burn hole in my face, stitches in my scalp, and filthy pants - and there were the two good-looking A/C repair guys who I had forgotten were coming to replace the Singing Compressor of Doom. "I got in a fight with a bear in the parking lot," I said defensively. Damn.


After:



Oh yeah, that's a real improvement there.

My forehead looks much better, too.



moral: remove your moles with nail clippers.

The book signing

I didn't have to drive, so I threw back some medicine, hoping to clear my head before facing the indifferent passersby in the book stores all afternoon. Halfway to town, I was busy making a hat for my ex-brother-in-law, who hates me, and was alerted to a faint wargling in the back seat. Looked behind me just in time to see a wave of orange macerated goldfish erupt from the infink, his tiny constitution undone by the curvy road. Pulled over, peeled him from his clothes, and searched the car for spare duds. Found a dirty sock. Mopped him off with it, snapped him naked back into his seat, and drove to Old Navy while I tried to convert the hat into a speedy pair of trousers and matching jacket. Perhaps not off to a great start.
Spiffed out in a purple polo shirt and tight emo cords ("Ok, let's leave the tags on until we make sure they -" *rip rip* "-fit.") the infink ran off with the boys to see a movie, and I was ditched at the book store. I finally met my author, who was so fantastic and gorgeous that I really, really wished I hadn't been tripping off my gourd on decongestants and - soon after - tipped over the edge by an enormous complimentary pumpkin latte. I believe at one point I marveled that her husband had square pupils like a goat. Hordes of absurdly good-looking people crowded in to say hi to her, while a handful of burned out bookstore hobos meandered over to my side of the table. It was a lot of fun, the mustache was legendary, the conversation raucous, Tia almost got thrown out of Borders Express for carrying an empty Starbucks cup (thank goodness Vigilant Cashier didn't see the cookie platter), and I bought a hot-pink sparkling Virgin Mary piggie bank in the midst of my chemical fugue.



Amazing day. We even sold a few books, too. Am going to suggest that we slink into the store every weekend and assemble a little fort out of our books to pretend that we are having signings, by way of procuring more hang-out time and lattes.

Halloween 2010

I am sick. Siiick. Lurched through airport, the very beast they have installed automated sanitation-goo stations every 10 feet in order to combat.



But I'm sick with a retro photo app, so also tragically hip.

The weekend was wonderful, sickness aside. And despite the fact that no wild fantasies of unbridled materialism actually happened. The samples of handcrafted marshmallows at Williams-Sonoma go uneaten until next visit.

Saturday: dragged to the university to help my mom invest her wax sculpture in plaster for the bronze pour. Put on a pink gas mask and mixed lung-destroying substances, spent some time admiring the graffiti in the women's bathroom. Between the flowers and positive affirmations, someone had drawn a penis and hairy balls, which was followed by half a wall of disappointed remarks and suggestions for art and literature courses to improve the peen-doodler's creative range.

In the evening, we went to the store to buy candy and a pumpkin; stood for 10 minutes talking shit about the other's candy preferences, then turned around and realized that the ONLY PUMPKIN IN THE STORE was sitting on a display right behind us, just waiting for someone else to walk by and pick it up. We tackled it.

Sunday: lunch at Gordon Biersch. I had lobster bisque, because I am fancy like that.



Fanciness undermined by kiddie menu octopuses, as usual.

We went to the Edward Gorey exhibition at the university, where Gavin scored some candy because he had insisted on wearing his getup all day and accidentally wandered into the costume contest at the right moment. My favorite was the toddler dressed as "K is for Kate, who was struck with an axe", with tiny bloodstained shirt and plastic axe sticking out her back.



Which, awesome as the costume was, I would flat-out be unable to do to my infant without barfing.

Hurried home to carve the pumpkin, throw up some streamers, bake some pizza, and dump the kids into costumes.

Leif wasn't having any of it. We managed to get him into hat and pants and take the picture before he ripped it all off.



He eventually figured out what was going on and began running up the sidewalk after the big boys and shrieking, "TEET TEET!" at every door. He's advanced like that.

The cousins were great in their matching outfits, and some Potter-loving neighbor snuck special fancy-ass pewter HP bookmarks into their buckets, which made them all aspirate their pixie sticks when they were discovered.



I went in my traditional role of Tired Old Tart.



Mike went as a vampire in a long women's wig. I did not take a picture of him. Shamelessness is great - Mike in that wig was not.

When all the children were dumping candy on the floor and the crowds of kids turned to trickles of self-conscious teenagers, my mom gave me two margaritas and then asked me to wrap up the pumpkin in plastic. I managed not to wrap any cats or children to it, so I was pleased with myself.



And then my lungs tried to escape my body via my nose.

Back to the couch I go.

moose stink and pumpkin Jack

Performance day. I helped drag furniture out of the children's section, then stopped and sniffed; something smelled like Newfoundland. Here approached the Canadian storyteller, who wore bushy white eyebrows and an inuit jacket made of smoked moose hide. This turned out to be the magical memory trigger; my childhood smells like dead moose.

I ruined his authentic get-up with a nut lei.

He made a passable bear-with-head-stuck-in-bucket, despite this.

Then I tried to fit myself in the bucket and stowaway back to the Yukon. Shooed out, I gave his wife an avocado from my "oh please just take them" box, which she sniffed at and tried to peel like an orange. I was both charmed by her polite struggling and mortified that I had put her on the spot with a mutant fruit. But it had to be done. The produce situation in our kitchen is getting out of hand. I have been wandering the yard, wailing for the avocado thief. I promised not to make a jacket out of him this time, but no hungry face appeared in the shrubbery. To help deal with this crisis of bounty, the cohorts arrived for chicken and dumplings, the new Fest Bier, caramel apples, and some pumpkin butchery.

Another masterpiece of chilling innovation and execution. The men wielded the knives, so Jack was nearly sawed in half when it was time to take his top off and gut him. 

The kids burned off their sugar highs and collapsed in front of Tim Burton while we hid on the porch behind cards. Losing spectacularly at rummy is a special skill of mine. Like my 69 bowling average. Am built for surviving childbirth and ice ages; not playing games that involve points or skill or luck. 

Grey, blustery weather, with sweeping curtains of rain. The newspapers are grim, the ghost has been amusing itself with readjusting my driver's seat so that I smack my head off the door when I get in, and we are hunkering indoors to bake the chills away.

sentimental sentiments

Last night I pulled up to the house, flicked off my audio book, and walked back through the dark to shut the gate. As I hooked the chain, I turned around and had one of those moments where you discover that time has stopped and turned to look at you. The moon, almost full, was bright enough to cast my shadow on the grass. There were no street lights, no sounds of traffic, just the stars and crickets and my little house; its windows the only lights in the night. There was the smell of dinner, faint music, and the sound of Leif laughing in the bath. The moon and I regarded each other. This was one of those moments I would reach back through time for. Some day, when my boys are grown and gone, and I am alone, I might think about the golden days of young adulthood, small children, and our little home on Maui, and wish I could have them all again for just a moment. I gave it to myself, pretended I had just been transported back in time - not only to visit, but to stay and live all over again. Now a sprightly old time traveler, I ran back to the house on renewed legs to kiss my babies, tuck them in bed, and curl up on the couch with the man for a nightcap and quiet kisses with the cat on our laps. There are a handful of moonlit nights I would reach back through time for, but things being as they are, this is the only one I have.

I rummaged through my colors and fibers, thinking about the holidays. I don't have very many possessions I attach a lot of sentiment to, but one of these is my hand-knit Christmas stocking, made by someone long-gone and never-known, who cared enough about this pink little infant in Newfoundland to knit a stocking to match the ones made for my mother and aunts when they were babies in the 50s and 60s. The man also had someone who carefully knit his name into a stocking that year. My aunt knit one for Gavin, and I knit one for Leif. I have all the materials and means to make them now, but I'm not sure who might want one. The balls of wool can wait until I get a clue.



I have the patterns for these two stockings; mine is like the first.

I bite my tongue at work a lot, since making angry people angrier doesn't help me do my job, and October inexplicably spawns lots of "blogtober" people who dig deep and share things I don't feel like explaining to the world, but I will share this:

A few months ago I got back from the dentist, took one of the Percocet he prescribed, got online [BAD IDEA], and bought a small, fully-functioning compass pendant for myself. A few times a day, if/when I am feeling sappy, I pick it up, turn until it faces North, and tilt it to the East so that, laid flat, it points at my heart. So I can find my way back home, I think, and then duck to make sure nobody overheard my brain.



It's sappy, but I do it anyway, because it is my brain, and my heart, and it's just the way things are.

but I don't have 9 balls

The boy walked with his Tae Kwon Do class in the Aloha Week Parade again this year (scavenger hunt: find us in the crowd scene. I'm the glowing white dot by - where else? - the food booth). They marched the main street and stopped every few yards to do their routine of kicks and punches in unison.

Followed by synchronized belt-twiddling.

We sat in the grass to wave at the fancy vehicles, and be-decked flatbeds full of overheated children pelted candy at us. We stuffed ourselves with lau lau and Korean chicken, bought a useless balloon animal, and had a lazy sun-tired evening of bbq, wine, and a movie with the friend-types. On Sunday, we borrowed their eldest girl-child, and had one of those charmed days of music and baking and yard-kids that make the weekends worth getting onto the library roof and pulling saplings out of the gutter for.

I say that, but I actually love climbing up to the roof. Going through the dark, humming machinery to scrabble up the metal ladder and pop the ceiling hatch makes me feel like I'm in a sci-fi horror flick, and I always pretend I am wearing gritty-yet-alluring space pants and leap off the last few rungs into a defensive posture. Will eventually break a heel and kill myself in there.

more:

than:



(While I am at work, anyway. Sigourney there pretty much sums up my home-defense system.) /end tangent

When it comes to festivities, I am not so much a participates-in-fun-activities person as a hides-in-kitchen-with-a-ham-and-a-bottle-of-moscato person. But of all the assorted tortures that go along with Aloha Week, this one managed to pique my interest:

Friday, October 22
Cross Country Golf: 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Tee Time 12:00 and 3:00 p.m. Shot gun start.
Bring three clubs (one needs to be homemade) and nine junk golf balls for this fun-filled event.

Did you catch that? Bring three clubs - ONE NEEDS TO BE HOMEMADE (oh yeah, and "shot gun start". Hello, officer). This promises to be, essentially, a bunch of semi-sober people hitting balls with baseball bats and, I don't know, stuffed swordfish - across some undefined course to some unknown goal, for no other reason than to run amock swinging unconventional implements of ball whackery. That is some action I could get behind. I could even knit some golf cozies by Friday, and appropriate the boy's light saber. The "voom voom" noises and flashing light could distract the competition. And if they get ahead of me, I can hit them with it. Foolproof.



There were no events for fish slapping or self defense against fresh fruit. I might apply to be on the committee next year.

spangled

I drove by the fields on the way to the post office, and all the cows were lumped lazily beneath the trees as if they had been pressed from a cookie spritzer. One was completely covered in birds; only a pair of sad eyes staring from between them as if to say, "Not this shit again." Bird-spangled cow.

It is banana time again. They have been mashed and bagged and frozen. Banana-spangled kitchen.

 

The house smells like banana bread. Which is good, because some idiot chemistry-happy person decided that the best, darkest, most secure place to breed enormous beakers of beer yeast was IN THE CLOSET WITH ALL MY WORK CLOTHES. Degree and Monistat haven't yet partnered to create a product for this type of situation, so I am casting my vote for a new incubation spot. Like his underwear drawer.

I smell like a donut. I am shopping for a sprinkle hoodie.

yeast-spangled

And I am making things, in the evenings when the kids are asleep and the man is out throwing darts at the other dads.

Things in alpaca, for when I need to flounce in a flouncy manner.

 

And things in tweed, for when I feel like tucking my hands into my sleeves and hiding.



Should knit the man a yeast-cozy. And then make him wear it as a hat.

we can go a'waltzing just so you can kick my head in

The bad mood persists. Heavy breathers on the phone, unsolicited gropings, lurking lurkers at closing time. Last night, the hiss and burble of the beer fermentor permeated the insulation of the pillow jammed over my head, and the re-captured gargoyle cat used the sound as cover for her manic screen-ripping. In the early morning, I staggered out of bed with the muzzy determination to lob the cat at the fermentor, and discovered that it was about to blow up (the beer, not the cat). Located the man, who had fallen asleep under the Order of the Phoenix in the boy's room, and resigned myself to the coffee pot while he ran by with syphoning hoses and towels. Have not slept more than 5 hours a night for over a week. Have begun trembling slightly, and yesterday my heart stopped beating for just a moment. Thumped my chest a bit to get it going again. Disconcerting.

On the plus side, the boy has returned from Granny's house, longer of leg and richer of useless magnetic plastic toys! And the infink has conquered the potty! The couch clears its throat tersely, having a slightly different opinion on the matter. Shut up, couch, we are diaper-free now, and that is very nearly the same thing as potty-trained.

squirrel poles and guacamole

A class of kindergartners came to the library. As they checked out, I told them which of their books were still at home. Many of them are living with only one parent by this age, but I try to be fair and include both in my spiel. "So when you go home, ask mom or dad to help you find the book, ok?" One little girl beamed. "My dad works in WASHINGTON! We don't see him anymore!" Well, shit. A boy hurried to the desk and hopped eagerly with his card held out. I checked his account, told him which book he had to return, and said it again. He grinned and said, "My dad's DEAD!" "Oh... Well, I guess you'll have to ask your mom, then." Tragedy wears Garanimals trousers.

To catch an avocado poacher

"If we're allowed to shoot trespassers," I said to the man, "Can we skin them and make a leather jacket from them, too?"
"I don't think so. I think legally, you'd have to skin them first, and then shoot them for trespassing. Then you could just say that they were like that when you shot them."
He is very dark for someone knitting a tree skirt.

Our avocados are falling. They are fantastic.

A few weeks ago, a young man came to hang on our front gate, eyeing our avocado tree and demanding (not asking) to pick them all for his own profit. We said, "Um, no." The next day, someone had climbed the gate and stolen all our lowest avocados. I began designing squirrel poles and deadfall devices.

Just need to find a rock big enough to cover the tree.

Yesterday, the same backpacked figure skirtched his bicycle at the gate and hung on it again. "How are those avos, man?" Mike went out to turn him away. The guy incessantly cased the tree with greedy eyes as they talked. "I have a buyer lined up, dollar a pound, man." I stood by the door, trying to figure out if the iphone had a zoom function. It did not, and the man rode away before I could charge out and snap his picture, yelling, "FUCK OFF, AVOCADO JUNKIE!" Now we wait to see if he comes back in the night with a wheelbarrow and a ladder, having already cleaned off the branches within arm's reach. There are perhaps 200 lbs of avocados on the entire tree. $200 doesn't buy a whole lot of meth, but hey, maybe our belongings and children and organs might. I didn't see if he had any tattoos. They would look nice on the back of my jacket.

knit me some disappointment

Finished the entire back, front right, sleeve, and half of the other front of my mother's cardigan. Ran out of yarn. Went to grab my last two balls (leave it). Discovered this:

Oh, and the color I need is discontinued.

In other news

The boy was sent off to Oahu to spend fall break with his grandma. Both children have been basking in only-child-ness. One individual who is not enjoying any of it is Maura, the man's evil throat-ripping cat. She has been running away ever since we moved, and the man has been walking back down to the old house to retrieve her. This weekend he put his foot down and locked her in, and the litter box has been moved from the patio to the bathroom during her quarantine. The only space for a litter box is in front of the toilet. Sookie heard me in the bathroom, bowled open the door, waddled into the litter box, failed to fit her massive bottom completely over the litter, and peed on my feet. I am disenchanted with this arrangement.