wax mercat

October 29, 2014tempestpilot

My mother has been doing bronze casting at the University again, and gave me a ball of wax to attach to her next investment – a sculpture of a small swimming mermaid.

So I made her a cat companion. Needs work, but I’m happy with it as a start.

shaking fist at fall

October 21, 2014tempestpilot

The hurricane rolled past, dragging with it all the clouds and wind. It is hot. And bright. And birds are twittering. This is not pumpkin spice weather.

So I ripped out my knitting. I will go to the yarn store, and let the yarns speak to me! said my first thoughts. I will go and be sad because all the best stuff is wool, said my second thoughts. I will go and the kids will ruin it and embarrass me, said my third thoughts. My third thoughts are assholes, though, so I went anyway. The youngest boy went with me. He is usually a good shopper, able to browse stores politely and amuse himself for a few minutes without complaining, but oh no, mom is looking at things. He opened drawers and pulled yarn off the shelves and coughed on everything and talked loudly about his allergies and laid prone on the floor and hung on the front door like a limpet while old ladies tried to get inside. I left empty-handed and red-faced, dragging him along behind me.
Fine. Am listless and unproductive and uninspired, listening to Janet Evanovich audio books like someone eating candy bars in the toilet. Bukowski and Vonnegut are languishing on my desk, and I just… ugh. FALL.

Divergent

October 17, 2014tempestpilot

So I read Divergent, because I’m a librarian and also because I enjoy reading about teenagers killing each other. Veronica Roth commits the ‘not a beautiful woman’ literary crime, wherein the character is described as not pretty because of unappealing features such as too-big eyes or too-full lips or too-luscious boobs. Sorry, authors. If you tell me the character is not pretty, I am going to exaggerate those features until they are actually not pretty, because you told me to. Let her be pretty or let her be homely, it’s ok either way. Really.

look at this thing

October 15, 2014tempestpilot

The folks over at NOAA must be morosely anticipating the floods of Frozen princesses on Halloween, too. “Let’s name the storm ‘Anna’! Then it will literally be a flood! And a depression!” “That is not funny, I’ve already talked Fred into going as Elsa*. You can’t name a storm after my costume, I’ve spent hours gluing on pom poms.” “Fine.” So they crossed out an “N”.

Tropical Depression Ana makes its way toward us this weekend, winding itself up into a hurricane, and has already cancelled my field trip to the Children’s Services meeting – which was going to have FREE COOKIES. Thanks a bunch, NOAA nature.

image updated Saturday at 5pm

* and thank you, Internet:

who would want to be such an asshole

October 14, 2014tempestpilot

Today’s post written by Charles Bukowski

I drive home for an hour listening to the narrator of an audio book

mispronouncing the same word

over

and over.

a kid on a motorcycle speeds by me with no helmet, no jacket

and I think, what an idiot,

just in time to see him rolling down the highway

with his arms thrown up around his head

bike skidding away ahead of him

and brakes flashing on

like lighters at a concert

while people stop to watch.

a man with military hair jumps out of his truck and strides to the scene

while the kid stands up and staggers with his hands raised

no blood yet

all limbs still attached.

traffic moves on, everybody thinking

about how they would have helped

and maybe

about how they were disappointed

when he got up.

nailing it – Halloween edition

October 9, 2014tempestpilot

I am finally learning about Halloween preparation, after 11 years on the circuit.

1) Fancy hand-sewn costumes lead to tears and rage, unless I have the time to do it right. Which I don’t.

2) My kids will pick the first thing that comes to mind, usually ninjas – even when nobody even likes ninjas – so there is no point in even asking them.

3) After the initial cries of “ninjas!” my kids will base their costume choices on weaponry and toys (“Sonic screwdriver!” “That is not a costume”), which I just end up carrying for the entire trick-or-treat expedition, so there is no point in even asking them.

4) Nothing will go on sale, it will just sell out. Buy the first thing that looks ok and run for it. (Although I was forbidden from buying the baby a dog’s taco costume at the pet store, even though it totally fit her, on the grounds that a) it was a dog costume and b) it was a taco. Which were the two best reasons for getting it.)

This year, the mall opened a seasonal Halloween store, and kids ran for the plastic devil pitchforks while I dug through the scary bin of discontinued costumes that have failed to sell for 15 years. Among these was a dusty Teletubbie costume, and Zenny flipped her wig with excitement. Teletubbies and Simon’s Cat are the only things she gets to watch at home – if we’re not counting family viewings of Doctor Who and Downton Abbey. I didn’t see a toddler Dowager Countess of Grantham costume in the bin, so I bought her the yellow felt Lala suit and felt like a big damn hero.

It’s like this, only… more deflated:

For the small boy, I ordered a viking costume. DONE. The large boy, however, has decided (after trying to get a ninja costume and sonic screwdriver out of me) that he needs to be Rob Anybody of the Nac Mac Feegle, and has been spending a disproportionate amount of time figuring out how to get items for his spog – this being a leather bag like a sporran, containing bits of yarn, teeth, and sheep liniment. WHICH NOBODY WILL BE ABLE TO SEE. BECAUSE IT IS IN A BAG.

Oh, waily, waily.

I have done what I can to support his endeavors with the acquisition of a red wig, blue paint, and an old kilt. It will be quite the school costume parade this year, if I can’t get a shirt on him.

Wasn’t kidding

October 6, 2014tempestpilot

Things afoot

October 2, 2014tempestpilot

These being socks, in particular. Which I will here model in an awkward manner from my desk before work.

It is really hard to take pictures of socks without adopting the pigeon-toe pose. It’s mostly an attempt to show both sides at once, and it looks pretty twee.

These things are finally, FINALLY done, after three false starts and one incident of cat barf.

Pigeon-toes are often followed by hot-dog-legs, because the knitter feels defensive about their ankles.

If the socks are very slightly too large, my mother is not saying anything, because she does not want me to cry and then stuff the socks over her head. And anyway, they are pretty. Free pattern for Deflect socks via knitty.

Close-up with neutral background. Did not have driftwood at hand, made do with office chair.

I have also been adding entries to the Chronicles of Muu, my small literary endeavor based on my mother’s stories. I am burying this at the bottom here because I feel weird about it. Thankfully, tumblr doesn’t do stats, so I can’t tell if anyone is reading it or not.

So there! Go make socks and read about dead things. It is seasonal!

At least it isn’t a leash. Yet.

September 26, 2014tempestpilot

One of the immutable laws of parenthood is If You Make a Threat, You Must Follow Through. That is why most of my threats are ones that I can not reasonably be expected to accomplish. “Pick up your socks, or I will stuff them up your nose and use you as a swiffer.” “Get buckled up, or I am strapping you to the surf rack with duct tape and bungie cords.” My cousin, at the age of 3, had a moment of terror and collapsed around my knees in tears when I threatened to tie the kids to the ceiling fan and hit them with a stick. Gavin, also 3, cackled and said, “You hold the stick, and ’round and ’round and WHAP WHAP WHAP WHAP.” He understands how this works.

But if you make threats like, “Put that down or we are leaving!” you then have to leave, and the smug child has successfully ruined your trip to the lumber yard. And if you make threats like, “If you keep whacking your head and having seizures, we are getting you a helmet!” well, you pretty much have to buy the damned helmet the next time your kid whacks their head. Which mine did. Again. Last night.

I got home from work and said, “Hmm, I mysteriously feel like having a glass of wine, which is weird because I do not like wine.” I was halfway through my glass when the man burst into the house, Zenny ran laughing into my arms, and he said, with the slightly dazed and smoking air of a man who has just been shocked by the toaster, “Yeah, you TELL HER what you just did at the store.” She did not, because she is 18 months old, but I deduced what had happened, using my keen librarian sleuthing skills*. She had lunged from her umbrella stroller while the man was choosing bananas, landed on the side of her head, cried, froze for a just second, her eyes dilated, the man scrabbled for his phone to call 911, and then she gasped and cried and went back to normal. Mike went a bit greyer around the temples. I gave him my glass of wine.

And then I got online to shop for helmets. Her doctor said it takes months and months for a noggin to heal from a concussion; she is risking seizures every time she falls from now until next spring – and we don’t have enough wine for that.

Baby safety helmets are ridiculous.

WHAT

NO

WELL… ok, this one is kind of – ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS?

Fine.

We bought the blue one. It says “SONGZHLONG” across the front, so there you go. I am going to find Gavin’s sneaker-wings and hot glue them to the sides like a Valkyrie helmet.

If it weren’t 92 degrees here, I would just knit her a hat. Something seasonal, with lots of padding.

YES.

And I still haven’t dropped off the box of stuffed animals I’m donating to the ER. At this rate, I won’t need to; I can just dole them out to her every time we visit the hospital. Sheesh.

* I asked what happened.

Mini-vacation and more trauma

September 22, 2014tempestpilot

“Well!” I said, standing at the door with our backpacks, “Whatever happens, it will be an adventure.” Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled.

I braced for the worst, wrangling three children through airport security, but they were fine. The rental car was so lux it made us all giddy, turning on butt warmers and scrabbling around in all the seats. We picked up a fourth child, one of the large boy’s best friends, and drove for two hours into the night, along the switchback cliffs – and the baby slept. It was a vacation miracle. I opened the moon roof and watched the stars and felt love for the universe.

Our cabin was perfect.

And the knitting spot was divine.

We met friends at the bay, I lunched with the new librarian over Thai food, and there were lobster sightings with the snorkel. The newest fad in these parts are handmade whips. Bull whips, made of duct tape and rope and whatever the hell. A modern take on the kind that were in fashion 80 years ago, when my great-grandfather had his eye taken out by one. CRACK. CRACK. CRACK. This can not last. Trends are no good unless they get you laid, and there will be no hanky or panky amidst the threat of eyeball loss. In the meantime, it’s a perfect time to shoot someone, because nobody will even notice with all the noise.

We were overrun by pre-teens, and it was beautiful.

And then Zenny slipped and fell and smacked her head.

She was walking in the carport, following our friends’ dog with an outstretched hand, and hit a wet spot on the concrete. She went down and threw out her hands, but her head hit the ground in just the same spot as the last time. I ran and picked her up, and she started crying – which was reassuring until the scream froze, her eyes dilated, and she went rigid, jerking. I called to Mike, he ran to the landline to call 911 (there is no cell phone service), and we waited. It’s a bit of a drive from the health center, and there is just one ambulance. She went from staring and stiff to limp and unconscious, and we called to her and gently tried to wake her until the EMTs arrived. They stuffed us in the back of the ambulance and tore along to the airfield, strapping her to a board and trying for an IV until she was alert and screaming. While waiting for the helicopter to get in, they told me I couldn’t ride with her. I bent over her and murmured soothing things while she gripped my fingers, then they had her out of the ambulance and into the helicopter and I was standing barefoot on the airfield, sobbing. I took a shitty picture as they went, feeling stupid, but whatever – bad things need documentation, too.

One of my old library patrons who works at the airfield looked hard at me.

“… Holly?”

“Yeah. You probably don’t recognize me, because I wasn’t usually sobbing at the reference desk,” I hiccupped. He gathered me up and I cried on him.

They herded me into the office, I called my mother on Oahu, who texted Mike in the Dead Zone (texts work with wifi), and he rushed to pick me up. We drove for two hours into the night with no cell reception. My legs started drumming and my hands kept moving up to gather my hair, twist it, let it go. I wanted to climb out the moon roof and run to the hospital. I did breathing exercises and tried not to think about bleeds, swelling, secondary seizures, or brain damage. I skidded into the ER and could hardly tell them why I was there. “MY BABY. HANA. HELICOPTER.” They brought me in.

And she was ok. One of the nurses shushed me when I reached for her, because she had just gotten her to sleep after her CT scan. The doctors were embarrassed that the helicopter had left me. They hadn’t even gotten her name; her ankle bracelets said “baby girl, 1 year”.

 

 They discharged us when the scans came back normal. “Well, she’s very likely fine, the seizure was probably caused by post-concussive bruising from her previous fall. Anyway, we don’t have a pediatric neurologist on this island, so you’re just as well at a hotel as you would be here, really.” That is encouraging.

The only hotel that wasn’t full was the stupid fancy one. We showed up with our eyes like boiled eggs, and I threw out bloody gauze in the receptionist’s trash and asked her to cut the hospital bracelets off. She looked like she was considering calling the hospital to see if they had an escapee. Still, it was a nice suite.

Our friends drove the boys down in the afternoon, and we flew back in the evening, crawled into the house, and collapsed. My mother poured a glass of wine down my throat.

RUN AWAY

  So we are home. HOME. HOMEY HOME HOME. I am never traveling again.

Oahu put on the welcome lights for us.

At least, not until we can get one of these for Zenny.