Bloomsbury- actual knitting content

(dr. update in Grim post)

With all funds diverted to establishing the new household, I've had the satisfying/piteous job of relying on my old stash for all my knitting projects; my stash being made up of three small-ish plastic boxes stored in the pirate trunk we stole from someone's garbage. There's some good stuff in there, but only two balls of anything, so that precludes any winter-wear for myself or the boys. I stood in the thrift store holding up old sweaters, contemplating picking the seams and ripping them apart for yarn, and then huffed dejectedly because I might as well just buy the finished sweaters for the kids and save myself 3 months of knitting with someone else's pit sweat.

After a lot of waffling, I pulled out the luscious Arucania and cast on a baby sweater. The pattern is supposed to be on larger needles with worsted, but all I had was fingering, so I went with the largest size on smaller needles. Without swatching, OF COURSE.

Which is probably why it fits like a sausage casing around the middle (but, you know, loose in the arms). That shit will block out, I tell myself. Lace stretches. She's a skinny child. I DO WHAT I WANT.

Bloomsbury Kids

I'm down to the last 5 inches of the second sleeve, and already eyeing my dwindling stash box with a bit of desperation. I'll be back to knitting fucking doilies if I can't scrape up funds for a knitpicks order. Thanks for not offering free shipping to Hawaii, KNITPICKS. You can send that shit on the boat for the same cost as land shipping, we don't mind waiting 6 weeks. We would just order more, to stagger arrivals. Think about it.

fire, wigs, and trucks

Labor Day: the man tried to bake a pizza on "clean", and set the oven on fire. That is not clean eating, I told him.

Scary Dr. Appt Day: could have gone better. Waiting on lab results. I remarked to a friend that in the very worst case scenario I would shave my head and go full Furiosa, but it was a lie. Libraries are cold, and I would actually wear really remarkably awful wigs, of all colors and historical periods.

beards are wigs, too

It's important to have plans in place.

Other news: found new/better daycare option for the babby, necessitating purchase of a second vehicle (the man is careering around the highway in the rain on a motorcycle right now). Looking for piece of shit truck, to fit budget/home renovation requirements. Having fit of fancifulness about learning auto repair and cruising around in a battered old Ford while listening to the Eagles and wearing bandannas. Becoming my mother, basically. Which is fine, because it'll keep me off the cell phone. She had to use her computer to track her lost phone this weekend, and found it buried in the litter box. So there you go.

We saw a truck abandoned by the drug store that looked like we could afford it. Off to a good start.

the grim

File under: SHUT UP, SELF.

I was poking around in my archives and realized that I used to talk about actual things that were actually happening, instead of posting pictures and chirping vaguely. My general blog philosophy has always been "My life is not more embarrassing than anyone else's," and "what is the point of documenting a life if you don't document what is actually happening in the fucking life?" And also, "Strangers on the street are more dangerous than strangers in the computer, because they can stab you." And anyway, I can delete it later.

So now I am going to talk about gynecology. FLEE. FLEE WHILE YOU CAN.

Way back when I was a young, pregnant, broke-ass recent-grad, I went down to a tiny community women's center for my prenatal care. The examination chair was probably war-era surplus, and someone had tried to make it more comfortable by sticking moo-cow pot mitts on the stirrups. You put your feet in their mouths, and they stared sympathetically up your paper gown. For all the years since, when visiting a new doctor, I have felt sadness at the sight of cold rubber stirrups without little doleful moo-cows.

So a few weeks ago, I found myself up on the table again, getting irked because someone had replaced a ceiling tile over the exam area with a different brand, and the dot pattern was irregular. Maybe it was a psychological component. If you get hysterical about the dots, you win more drugs and they check off "wandering womb" on your asylum admittance form. One doctor was flipping through my chart, while the other accidentally knocked the speculum off the tray and onto the ground. She went to get a replacement, and Mr. Doctor said, "Get the metal one, it hurts less." I wondered what he had done to himself to gain this insight. "MISS," he was talking to me now, a notch louder, "How ol- er, how YOUNG are you?" Oh, for fuck's sake. I am dressed in blue paper and you've asked for metal tools to shove up my business - I think my delicate lady brain can withstand the word 'old' without shattering into pink glitter. "I'm 35." He riffled the papers, and I guessed he was looking at the number of babies I had expelled, because he lowered his voice just a little and told the other doctor, "And get the extra wide." I covered my face with my arms and laughed.

At home, I asked for the extra wide spoon for my soup. I knitted an extra-wide doily while watching a movie in the evening. I drew a picture of the man, and he said to be sure his shoulders looked extra-wide. We went on like this for a couple days, until bedtime on Friday rolled around and I was bobbing the baby around in the bath with a soapy poof and my phone rang. My extra-wide test results had come back badly. And because of symptoms and family history and tests, she wanted me to come back in as soon as possible to check for cancer with a specialist. I scheduled an appointment and got the kids in bed and sat down to ask my online friends if this was totally normal and cool. "Totally normal and cool," they agreed. But I don't normally get 7:30pm calls from doctors using the word CANCER, so it doesn't actually feel cool.

It's probably fine.

What if it's not fine?

It's probably fine.

I told my mom what was up, and she said, "Oh, that sounds exactly like when I had the beginnings of cancer. Quick surgery will fix you right up." WHAT. NO.

I went to work, and asked a patron how he was doing, because we hadn't seen him in a while. "Oh, my wife died of cervical cancer. She was fine, and then they found it had spread to her bones and lungs, and she just died." WHAT. NO.

It's probably fine. And I don't want to be that meowing worrier who freaks everyone out and then nothing happens - but at the same time, it's a thing that is happening and I AM A BIT FREAKED OUT. So I'm just putting it here, and I'll leave it here as a thing that transpired, and that's all fine and over with now.

Appointment with the specialist is in two weeks.

UPDATE: precancerous dysplasia, 40% chance of developing cancer, will check on it later to see if it goes one way or the other. So... great?

Today

Just a parrot in the tree. And the cat trying to slingshot herself into the tree. And the kid watching, unimpressed.

Day at the museum

Wall mural by the current exhibitions gallery.

Sargent painting which bore a familial resemblance I wasn't given time to contemplate. Big-nostriled heavy-lidded perpetually-chilly English heritage in action.

Ooer.

Phwawr.

Koi pond in the courtyard.

"Take a picture of me, Gavin." 

Grandmother egging child, "Put your hands in before your mother stops us."

Wooden horse RUN AWAY.

The only place they could run without me squawking and flapping after them.

---

The Honolulu Museum of Art has a Rodin exhibition running through January, and free family days once a month, so today I crammed the offspring into the car and off we went.

Rodin makes me vibrate like a strummed guitar. The stressed, yipping security guards were hurrying around and skidding on the polished floor, slapping hands off of all the luscious bronze bottoms. The kids had us whipping through the galleries at a hard trot, but I stood and quivered on point in front of the misbehaving naiads and a John Singer Sargent portrait before being hauled along by the invisible leash. The parental cries of "DON'T TOUCH" and "WHY would you put your finger in that?!" rang through the chambers, and I felt happy because they weren't about my kids.

It was pretty wonderful.

Next time I'm going by myself, though.

rampant lilikoi and a contrary jalapeno

This is the year for discovering what grows well and what shrivels up and dies in our garden. I am a food-minded person, and also a bit neglectful, so I want a garden that produces edibles and doesn't need much from me. I planted a billion seedlings, and here are the first-season results:

FAIL

* The cats pooped in the cucumbers until they died.

* Also the green beans.

* And the black-eyed peas.

* The gardenias are trying very hard to die, but failing. They are sulking and huddling together, having conspired not to grow into a nice floral hedge.

* The artichoke isn't sure what to do. One of the twenty seeds sprouted, and grew about 4 inches, and it's just been sitting there like that for 3 months.

* Marigolds keeled over.

* Nasturtiums tried to survive, but got tired and said eh, fuck it, and died.


HELP, THEY ARE TAKING OVER

* The lilikoi vines have become sentient and are trying to climb into the house, having taken over the entire fence and entryway. They are breeding and already producing fruit, and the bees are goddamn giddy. I love them so much, and will plant more and more and more of them - until the ceiling hangs with vines and the walls become the world all around.

* The tomatoes took over the veg garden and grew into monsters, and the mynah birds stole most of the fruit. I need some scary owl decoys to stand guard.

* The strawberry plants became huge and chuckled defiantly in deep smug voices and refused to make any berries. But they seem happy.

* Japanese eggplant seemed productive, but needed more water than I feel like contributing. Maybe I should move it under the roof run-off.

* All the herbs are cool with benign neglect, and the basil is getting along with the roses, which are still not convinced they are in the right climate. Because they are not.

* Pepper bushes seem content, as well, but aren't making any efforts to excel particularly. The jalapenos turned red, which I tried to explain to them was out of form, but they were all, "No. We are red now." I painted one of them and named it a Jalapenonono.

NEXT YEAR

More tomatoes, more lilikoi! Gardenias will be put in pots and kept in the house if they can't get their shit together. I'll plant night-blooming jasmine in the hedge row, instead, and give the neighbors perfume headaches to get back at them for using a charcoal grill during a forest fire.

Gardening is not as soothing as promised, but it has personality.

existential consternation

I finished the doily, finally. Dishwater beige thrift store crochet yarn, destined for the underside of a potted plant.

Yep.

Being productive wards off the dark stuff. Also, knitting keeps my hands out of the popcorn bowl on family movie night. But I'm looking at this doily and wondering about the output potential of my hands - mostly because I was watching the Hurt Locker while binding off, but still. When I'm surrounded by people doing their own activities, I knit. When I am on lunch break at work, I write my ongoing tumblr saga. When I've got the house to myself, I paint small pictures or draw librarian comics. And each of these things fits into the slots of time available to me in the environments in which they occur, and each of them is something I enjoy doing, but altogether I feel spread thin; unfocused, purposeless, unable to complete any one thing of any great import. And I know this is the dark stuff whispering, but I can't see that it is wrong in this matter.

Like anybody else, I want to be very good at something, and devote myself to it, and make something out of it that will live longer than me.

It's probably not doilies. But I'll be happy to keep making them in the small minutes if I'm working toward something... more.

Fire - with updates

Wed, 8/5

Heard an ominous crackling, ran outside to see if the house was on fire, and it was RAINING. Fire is still burning, but we aren't in danger of going up with a stray spark.

Everything is basically back to normal, environmental-catastrophe-wise. In-laws are still here. Kids are practically weeping with exhaustion from being taken on tourist adventures every day after school. With the rain coming in, I can mandate an in-house movie night and let them fall asleep on the floor.


Tuesday, 8/4

Evacuation was cancelled, as tiny helicopters with little balls of water managed to defend the forest line. Woke up to a house full of smoke and ash. Cats are kind of pissed about it. Friends in perpetually-burning California recommended putting wet towels down in front of doors to block the smoke, and I thought that was a great idea, but half our window louvers are rusted open and some have fallen out, so it's not really going to work so well. I dragged the air cleaner out into living room, turned it on blast, and left for work, instead. Will return to rescue cats if needed. Maybe from an ironic fire started by the air cleaner. (The man and his mother are around, it's ok.) If my last words are some embarrassingly inane text message like, "brb, swinging by house for cats" or an instagram captioned "house on fire, maybe I should be running instead of taking pictures", put it on my tombstone.

Meanwhile, we were promised a hurricane, and Guillermo has gotten tired and meandered north and doesn't seem interested in coming to flood the area after all. Maybe just send a bit of wind whipping through to start a fire tornado, instead?


Monday, 8/3

Oh, look.

Round up the water benders

The hurricane has weakened into a massive storm, and is still set on plowing over us. But at least it should leave our roofs on.

(Screencap)

And that is good, because now we are on fire. The forest by our house is ablaze, and we are waiting for the storm to put it out before the neighborhood is evacuated. So that's nice. Clearly an elemental battle of super villains is afoot.

seven people, one bathroom, and a hurricane

*protracted hysterical laughter*

storm updates here

GUESS WHO HASN'T SLEPT IN 4 DAYS. The babby doesn't sleep well with an extra body crammed in the bed, and has been taking it out on my face with her feet. Have been pretending I'm training for a special mission, preparing to negotiate sleep deprivation and unexpected blows to the head without cracking my steely mental resolve and courteous librarian smile. Which is basically what I'm actually doing, so I don't know why I'm pretending to prepare for it, but that is where I am right now.

This is playing in the car while I careen blearily to work.