Writing on the Road....

...while I can, because tomorrow I'll be home! I'm going to synopsize here (well, it may not be a word, but I just used it so there. Neener) and devote a proper post to talking about the trip when I'm back in my nest home. I'm also going to try to do me a tutorial or wossname, because I do have lots of pictures and want to share some with you.

I can also tell you that, on these journeys, Mr Dearling drives. Every mile, every hour, every inch. I passeng. I also read, knit or sleep. It is not lost on me that this is yet another blessing I have in Mr Dearling: he likes to drive, for one; also he reads maps the way some folks read romance novels. (More to the point, he understands them. I am strictly a "turn right at the tree that looks like a possum and go until you find that building that used to be a gas station, back when the Olsen farm still had all them cows" kinda girl.)



You'll notice that he does have help from Earnest-the-dashboard-dog. Earnest is not just another pretty face, he's a working dog - it's his job to hold onto those little cards you get in a parking garage, because if you lose that little card you have to pay as though you'd been there for twelve hours. Which is a LOT of money.

I have to say, my intention was to write the day's events every evening, being as the house we all stayed it did in fact have WiFi. And surely you may have noticed...that did not happen. Why not, Dale-Harriet? Are you a lazy slacker easily distractable? Funny you should mention. As it turned out, there were side trips to take, meals to enjoy,sights to see, sites to see, relatives and friends-of-relatives-now-friends-of-ours on the premises. There were a couple of days when all of the above, being a largely healthy-outdoors-y kind of crowd, went out for hikes in the beautiful environs, and I, being largely sedentary less inclined along those lines, spent the day in solitude either knitting (one day I discovered a "Firefly" marathon on the teevee) or actually, really, genuinely writing ! I polished a story I'd written in class, found and continued a story I'd begun a long time ago, and got a start on a couple of other inspirations. By the time everyone had gone to bed, I read all my daily blogs, IM'd with the Lovely Daughter or others, did a little research for above-mentioned stories - and then got to the point where it was either Go to Bed or explain having the keyboard imprinted on my face - and a whole page of whatever letter my nose happened to land on. NOTE: it has really and genuinely and truly happened, and is not a pretty sight and probably wasn't good for Daisy either!

So these words are being written from my bed in a Super 8 in the vicinity of Cleveland, OH and I will sort my notes, tidy up my pictures, and recount the high points of a very pleasant Time Away for y'all. Some thoughts to ponder while you wait:

Walnuts and dried cranberries are GOOD (and no doubt healthy as all get-out, from a "at my age I'm supposed to get a lot of fiber" viewpoint).

Our family members are patient, and didn't complain when we hung around Fort Carillon for what must have seemed like nine hours. (It was actually something over two hours - oh, and for those of you of the British History persuasion, that's "Fort Ticonderoga" to you.)

It is possible to spend five days with eleven people ALMOST "24/7" and enjoy all of their company all of the time.

Price Choppers are good grocery stores.

Mr Dearling (and sisters) (and helpful friends) make terrific gnocchi. By hand. From scratch. And if you ever want to taste better you're going to have to wait until you get to heaven, because their grandma's was reputedly better. Speaking as a nice little Jewish girl from Minot, North Dakota - you're not likely to find better gnocchi on this side of the Great Beyond, so fuhgettaboutit.

Visiting yarn shops randomly across the country is as much fun as I thought it would be. "Details at 11:00".

The gods really ARE skeptical about my visiting Ste Marie among the Iroquois; after three times going only to find it closed, today we actually made it! And it was genuinely cold with a very stiff wind, and we couldn't stay in the outside Mission site very long at all. (But the inside museum part was great and I got some fabulous pictures - digital cameras don't care if it IS cold and windy.)

And lastly: I do most earnestly and sincerely wish we had a Wegman's grocery store out by us. I most earnestly and sincerely do wish that. I even got some Paul Newman wintergreen mints in a tin with a polar bear on it. I am not making that up.
This is a RED trillium (!) as seen by Mr Dearling on a hike on Hadley Mountain.

A Year and a Week...and a contest!

First: Happy Mother's Day. (A week late, I know.) If you ARE a mother, chances are it went by so fast you hardly noticed. I remember the Mother's Days of my children's youth - there hangs in my memory a chain of breakfast trays holding burnt toast, rubbery eggs and cold tea. These are descriptors and not commentary. I loved every charred crumb. But the day can be lost in the swirl of diapers, field trip permission slips, pediatrician's offices and puke. (Why is it that when our infants spit up a little bit we croon "Oh, sweetie, does we feel better now?" with no foreshadowing of the same thing happening when he's nine and the 32 hotdogs he ate to outdo his buddy reappear - and always on the carpet, NEVER on the linoleum of the kitchen?) Sorry - that mental image came to ME unbidden, I couldn't help myself.

NOTE: The picture is my Mother's Day present from Mr Dearling. She's tiny, less than 3" tall, this Mother Bear. Her cub is a separate figure, and although it fits in against her, when you set the little cub aside you see that the Mother is the nurturer; all of you mothers of little ones know the incredible depth to which that is true. Children are fed with nourishment in such a myriad of ways, from the milk from breast or gently-warmed bottle to the cheering from the stands - in a pouring rain - for the soccer game, when the little tyke never gets within ten yards of the ball and you're jumping up and down and shouting "GOOD ONE!" So even though I'm writing a week after the actual Mother's Day, I know (and you do too) that every day is Mother's Day.

Here's another kind of Mother's Day - our nephew Dan graduates with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Skidmore College (our reason for being in NY). I admit it, I got tears in my eyes. Mr Dearling pointed out that we should be saying "Congratulations!" to all those parents who made it possible for all those graduates to do so. Congratulations, Geri & Steve! I'd say that's a good job, very well-done.

NOTE: I know, I said I'd be "blogging on the road"...and I - erh...uhm...haven't been very good about it. Something about a large group of friends and family in a lovely house on a beautiful lake in a gorgeous part of New York; suffice it to say, my next post will be photo-heavy (yeah, that new camera works GOOD!) and "detail-y". This is NOT an excuse, but is an explanation. Now back to your regular local programming.

Now to the MEAT of this post! Today my blog is ONE YEAR AND ONE WEEK OLD!! Yep, I've been blogging (sometimes less than more) for a solid year! I can hardly believe it myself, but I started on our 21st anniversary, and here we are. Yes, I hear you, back there at the back: "Dale-Harriet, for petessakes, it's been a whole year and you're still not up to snuff on this picture-posting thing." Guilty as charged - does Intention to Improve count? (Lawsy but I hope so, my whole life runs that way!) I have to say that I really enjoy this whole blogging thing. It's a very good exercise in writing, although I've noticed that when I am, I am often ignoring my cats, my kniting and my reading. Another area for improvement, non?

That being said, I've noticed among the GOOD bloggers (and I read a lot of them with delight and admiration) it's fairly customary to offer, on the blogiversary, a Contest of some sort - and I'm here to tell you, I'm going to follow suit. Because it seems to me (after looking back and rereading some of my own posts) that my life is generally very much like a circus, so the prizes will be related to that.

So here's the contest: Guess how many toques I have knitted? I have e-mailed the answer to Lovely Daughter (who will therefore not be entering, and yes, I do recognize her various aliases and noms de plume) - and the winner will be whoever guesses the closest without going over. The number is between one (raucous laughter) and 100 (hysterical laughter). I will also add that I do NOT currently have a toque on the needles. There IS one I'll need to start up sometime soon, but that one won't count because it's not even cast on yet. NOTE: I am taking a toque-sabbatical; there's no rush for the next and I'm wildly enjoying content to work on other things for a while.

The deadline for entries is one week from today, that being (she shuffles through her ever-present datebook, the loss of which would mean she wouldn't know when to go to the bif) and says " Sunday, May 25 " is the deadline for the contest.

I leave you today with photographic proof that I DID knit in the car on the way here to New York: I finished it in time to be of use and we've used it to do dishes every day. You may recognize it as The Easiest Knitting One Can Do; i.e., a perfect project for mindless driving which results in Something Useful. I've made a lot of Idiot Dishrags on trips (the truth is, I really enjoy knitting them...as I've said, I'm a Process Knitter, always pleasantly surprised when I bind off and discover that I have something !) Also, I'm a Happy Idiot.



And because I'm honest -- or perhaps to prove what I said about being a "process knitter" -- this is a piece I began in the My So-Called Scarf pattern, which I LOVE! I think it's so much fun to knit, even *I* found it easy to memorize, but interesting enough to keep my attention. However... because I'm not so smart -- that is, because I'm a Process Knitter -- I got pretty far, then made a mistake and wound up binding off and throwing it away THREE TIMES more than once. It was not exotic or costly yarn, and while that's wasteful, it really IS just plain fun to knit! Now, if I do that again I'll felt 'em and use them as...as....uhm - anyone got any ideas for thick useless little Knitted Square Things? But I recommend the pattern for all of you good knitters out there. Perhaps with the admonition to pay attention or be less lazy patient enough to tink if necessary. Just sayin'.

A Birth Day, of sorts...

The Gates of Heaven

(really!)

This is a very historic building. It was originally a synagogue on Washington Avenue in Madison, Wisconsin, and it was where the Jews in the Capitol fled to mourn upon receiving the news that President Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated.

It was saved; I don't know its entire history but it was eventually moved (!) to a lovely park right on Lake Mendota and placed in the loving care of the Parks Department. Today it can be rented, and it sees every possible manner of merriment and festivities of a wide variety of faiths, causes, and celebrations.

It was in this building, twenty-two years ago today, the Mr Dearling and I were married! We had lived together for four years, during which time he proposed to me with some regularity. My thinking during those years went something like this:
"The commitment is clear and strong. We're bonded for life."
"We're a pair of old hippies, we don't need no steenkin' piece o' paper."
"We have everything we could possibly want, what difference would it make?"

That was what I thought...until some time before Valentine's Day 1986 when it suddenly hit me that he was EARNEST! In spite of being a free-thinking, liberal, aging hippie like myself, he had a real streak of traditional which certainly I, as a Jew, should have recognized. And I'd been laughing at his proposals, how embarrassing is that? (Try OY! EMBARRASSING!)

So on Valentine's Day I gave him a card with a fancy sportscar on the front - the license plate said, simply, "Yes". We went to Burnie's Rock Shop to get an engagement ring, and I found a very pretty sterling setting and picked out a wonderful triangular faceted garnet. (Garnets purify the thoughts, clarify the mind and warm the heart.) Unfortunately, though, Burnie couldn't put that stone into the setting I liked, so Mr Dearling chose a soft sea-green star sapphire which, might I add, is as clear today as it was 22 years ago. The planning of the wedding was simple. We decided on May, which was distant enough that his sweet parents could come, and we informally invited my sister and her husband and a few friends. We arranged for the use of the Gates of Heaven (May 10 was a Saturday that year too - AND the day before Mother's Day!). Mr Dearling's sisters and their husbands planned to come too, the one from St. Paul and the other lived here in town.

Now, Mr Dearling had been along for the ride during my children's teen years, and I don't mind telling you, there were times when *I* was ready to stomp out and leave them with him, but I cared too much for him to do that. Besides, I'm ever the optimist. (May I say, on the eve of Mother's Day, my faith was not misplaced; my children are admirable people, though I must give credit where due: Mr Dearling's influence was well-timed and effective.

Interestingly, I discovered that children are somewhat traditional too! MY youngest, #2 Son, literally breathed a sigh of relief and confided that he was really glad "because now I know what to call him." Hadn't occurred to me, but he'd struggled with references or introductions. "This is my mom's...." Now 43-year-old women don't have "boyfriends". Parents don't have "lovers". (Leastwise not where the kids know about it - young teenagers can be turned to granite by the suggestion that they are the result of their parents' having...you know, done IT.) Oh, there were cute names..."MARS Man" was one of my favorites; it came out of California. Are you sitting down? OK: " Man Acting in Role of Spouse." Get it?

But now we were married, Mr Dearling became an honest "stepfather". The Lovely Daughter began calling him "Dad" with just the slightest hint of irony; in pretty short order the irony faded and she's called him "Dad" ever since.

NOTE: do not biggify these pictures; they were taken with a digital camera through the wrinkly plastic sheets covering the original pictures in a "magnetic album", which I think will guarantee their destruction - but hopefully not until we've croaked. My best friend Sue made our wedding cake, with lovely little roses made from flattened gumdrops; it was much more delicious than any other wedding cake I've ever had. In fact, friends took pictures, Lovely Daughter and I made cream-cheese-olive sandwiches cut in little triangles with the crusts off, and as I recall we drank lemonade. What did this extravaganza cost? Love, friendship, laughter and more love. A lot of it.

How young we looked! How...thin! How dark-haired! But let me see - Mr Dearling and his parents were a little late to the Gates of Heaven...because my mother-in-law-to-be (of blessed and cherished memory) went along to the floral-and-teddy-bear shop to get my floral wreath - and was delayed in picking out just the right teddy bear for me. Our officiant was a local character called "Rev Ted" who was a Universal Life Bishop (perfectly legitimate and legal, and he was an astrologer/free-thinker with an open heart and open hands and a good friend in the bargain.) My sister and her husband did NOT come; they had another obligation. But one of my dearest friends in the world was on his way back to New Hampshire from Iowa with HIS new bride, and they DID come! I had two of my three children there - #1 Son was doing a stint in the Navy at the time.

Don't we look cute? And you know, sort of normal? I had to admit, while there wasn't any big major change for any of us, it seemed that the kids especially seemed to relax into the security of a more traditional family.

Why a "birth day"? Because I'll say it here, as I've said it many and many a time over these last 26 years (remember, four together before the wedding) years: from the day Mr Dearling moved in and began sharing our lives, I have felt reborn. I have learned from my husband, and feel myself today to have a confidence, a security, an independence that I hadn't had before. We rarely argue, and we enjoy great discussions. For example, I wrote a story which takes place in Ancient Egypt, and in it I referred to the precious oil being "borne thence on a barque"....Mr Dearling took exception, saying that he believed barques were a form of boat foreign to Egypt, and that another word might be better. Later that day he got on line (whatever DID we do before the innerwebs?) and did some searching.........learning, thereby, that there WERE barques in ancient Egypt and some, specifically, were richly fitted out and used as conveyances for the gods. As we had originated this discussion at the Museum (to the vast entertainment of our college-aged colleagues) he made a distinct mention to them to apprise them of the accuracy (and position) of barques in Egypt.

I guess what all this boils down to is that I am saying "Thank You" to the man who, by making me his wife, gave me an independence, a confidence and security well beyond what I would have achieved on my own. I'm a better writer, a better reader, a better thinker, a better old lady, a better....well, ok, a more enthusiastic knitter. And I savor every moment of every day. It is such that we really enjoy our shared interests and mutual experiences - and relish our individual pursuits and solitary time as well. (We attribute much of our success to the fact that we joined our lives as adults, and didn't ever have to waste time with the game-playing, tense, scary ritual dance that is the Courtship of the Young.)

All's I can say, from my heart, is: Thanks, Mr Dearling. I love you!

And here begins the next wonderful fun of the next 22 years!

Can you say....

DISORGANIZED? Could you guess that about me? OK, here's the deal. I'm writing this on Saturday morning (and yes, it really IS May 10....it was pointed out that I haven't always posted on the date my piece was written -- I'm learning here, peoples). I'm going to post a Genuine, Proper Blog Entry later today. I have Copious Notes for it. I'm also making a Resolution, also described in the Proper one. My apology for all of this is aimed primarily at myself: I'm giving myself permission to take a deep breath and start over; my intention of writing every day would seem to have been a trifle unrealistic. (Still, holding to that as a goal may prove advantageous.) Some days, face it - nothing happens. Nada. Zilch. And not even *I* am interested in reading about that! Then there'll be a spate of days where so MUCH happens that I seem to not have time to write. I believe this is what qualifies as "an embarrassment of riches". (Never could quite grasp that - it'd have to be SOME riches before I was embarrassed by it, but that's another deal.)

ENNYway.

This is a Major Weekend, I mean MAJOR, so tonight's post will be worth reading. I still haven't learned the managing of pictures here to my satisfaction (thanks for not complaining). That'll be included in the Resolution.

Now I'm off to sort and wash clothes and pack and unpack and pack, as we're leaving at oh-dark-hunnert tomorrow morning for Saratoga Springs, NY. (YES I'm taking *Daisy, there WILL be blogging-on-the-road!) As I may have mentioned, my Packing for a Trip goes something like this:

Select books, DVDs, CDs and tapes to take along; find tote bag for same.
Select yarns, needles and patterns; find small basket for jaunts, larger basket for use in car, and decide whether or not to take the Rolling Yarnassus.
Select books on writing, notebooks, 4x6 cards, pens, pencils and Post-its; find another totebag for same.
Change mind about yarn and replace.
Change books to read, add a book on tape.
Swap out CDs (this feels like a Cajun trip, not a Celtic trip).
Nooo....maybe its a Phil Ochs sort of junket.
No. I'll make the final decision on music later.
Do I really WANT to read all three Terry Pratchett's this trip? Or should I take one of the novels about Mary Todd Lincoln?
Where's my pet pencil? (STOP LAUGHING, this is serious, people!)
If I put my completed stories AND the stories-in-progress on a flash drive, I won't have to take the little floppy disks at all.
Uhm...excuse me for pointing out the obvious, Dale-Harriet....the floppy disks don't work on Daisy. 'member?
Wait a minute - let's rethink that yarn. And - didn't I decide to move that blankie back on to straight needles? Well if THAT's the case...

OK. STOP RIGHT NOW! As you can see, this packing stuff is difficult. But if I don't at least start, I won't get very far. (Yes, I know that's clearly obvious to everyone in the world over the age of nine. Nevermind.)

Oh yeah - I'd best throw in a couple of dresses...some underwear...yeah.

*DAISY: Daisy is my laptop. I name stuff. Nevermind.

Red-Letter Day - definition...

SETTLE IN, FOLKS; THIS TOOK ME A LONG TIME TO WRITE AND IT'S LONG!

OK, Saturday Mr Dearling and #1 Son brought new couch home. I looked after #1 Son's sons (always an adventure - Master D, age six, read "Caps for Sale" to me, flawlessly; Master X saved my life ... four times ... with his light saber, in a flowing cape printed with teddy bears and bunnies; super heroes are secure in their Mighty Manliness). After, as reported, Mr Dearling got me my very posh new camera. (See earlier post.) Sunday I babysat again (the boys had cold pizza for breakfast, doesn't everyone?) and in the afternoon we went to a coffeehouse and met with our young friend home on R&R from her archaeology work in Cambodia. She's a fascinating girl, a favorite of ours, and we're very fond of her husband too, who is holding the fort here in Madison with their dog James. (James has his own blog.)

Sundown on Sunday was roughly 8:00 pm, and Mr Dearling and I went to Culver's for the ritual end-of-Passover blow-out. Notice: bread, bursting with leavening; yummy grilled Butterburger made of beef; good Wisconsin dairy-type cheese; a few veggies for health (requisite onion, tomato, lettuce)...and BACON. So much for kosher. NOTE: that's Mr Dearling's hand, we had the same meals - and yes, he does "still play with motorcycles", thanks for asking.

And then .... and THEN .... I woke up and it was MONDAY. That's Monday, the 28th day of April, upon which, in the evening, the Yarn Harlot was coming to Madison !

The flurry of activity began as soon as I woke up. First I took my old-lady-morning-pills and had my first cup of tea, with pizzelles. I love me some pizzelles (the anise ones) and hadn't had any during Passover. Then I tidied up some and began to assemble the little things I'd been accumulating to gift Stephanie. I'd been collecting for a while; on her last visit I think I gave her some Wisconsin stickers (she really liked the Badger one and I had to explain - very quickly - about the Cornish miners) and I wanted something more formal for this visit.

Briefly - I assembled a small bag (recycled, we're like that here) with such items as a bottle o' Spotted Cow (I think she got a lot o' local brewskis...do we not ROCK?); a block of 5-year-old sharp cheddar cheese AND a box o' crackers; an enamel pin reading "I Was in Wisconsin"; a gold Wisconsin coin (not legal tender); a mighty fine Sow's Ear travel mug (for disguising beer like coffee); cow pencil; tube of Udder Balm (all right, keep it down back there, it's good for your hands, too); and a very good emergency item: It's a Smile-On-a-Stick. She can look perfectly pleasant even in long airport delays with this handy little item. We all have times when we could use a Smile-on-a-Stick.

Then I started to try to decide what projects to take along. I had volunteered to go early and save seats for fellow Sow's Ear afficianados, other Hog-and-Bloggers. Should I cast on a sock? Take the baby wrap? the scarf? Ah, mais non! I'm near the end of the Very Last Toque (are you listening up there, Knitting Goddesses?) so my conscience won out and I packed my smallest basket with my knitting bowl and the NEARLY completed toque. Friend Donna, masterful crochet-worker, was coming over at 3:00 to ride over with me - she's working on another of her most amazing and beautiful afghans. I figured out what to wear, packed my pockets with required things - and noticed that there were large, soft snowflakes thickly falling ! Stephanie had said she tends to bring Winter with her. It's true! Of course, it didn't stick, but it was a dramatic moment.

OK, Donna arrived, I decided on a flowery dress, and my conscience won out: I'd take my tiny knitting basket and ONLY THE TOQUE. I thought a look of Righteous Piety might go well for the evening (when you don't wear make-up you wear a mind-set). Tote bag packed (my copy of the new book from Amazon - ok, call me a piker; I was into Immediate Gratification and I pre-ordered). NOTE: At the SAME time, I pre-ordered Stephanie's Page-o-Day calendar, due out in June - AND her *NEXT* book, due out in October....this innerwebs thing might be going too far when you can pre-order a book that's not finished yet.


AND SO WE GOT TO BORDER'S! It was about 4:35, and as we arrived we were met by a smiling girl at a table who announced proudly "Just like for Harry Potter, here's your wristband!" YES! JUST LIKE HARRY POTTER!! (but cuter, funnier, and she knits). Very clever plan to ease the book signing. There were also buttons: "Eat. Drink. Knit. - Yarn Harlot Tour 2008".

I had determined to save three seats for fellow Hog-and-Bloggers; we found that the front row was already occupied - but the second row (JUST as good) was not, so Donna and I arranged ourselves over a total of five chairs. Just a few people were there, and this wasn't a problem, by the way. NOTE: there were a LOT of chairs! I think that It Is Happening: the bookstores are beginning to realize that knitters have our own Rock Stars and should not be minimized! When Lovely Daughter and I arrived at the bookstore in Minneapolis for Crazy Aunt Purl, there were nine chairs. I think Border's had allowed for something around 200.

We got settled and our fellow knitters began to arrive. The mood, as you no doubt know, is the same in any like situation - a couple of friends, or a Knit Night at your LYS, or (in our case) at our Late-Night Knits at the Sow's Ear: everyone comparing, sharing, laughing, chatting - it was a Gathering of the Clan, a chapter meeting of the Community of Knitters. I think Stephanie's largely responsible for this. She's brought knitters out of our closets and out of our rocking chairs and made us aware of what was always the case: knitters ARE a family, we just didn't realize it .


Bethie of Chocolate Sheep arrived and settled between myself and Donna, who was saving the end seat for Jen - we knew she was bringing her wee pre-knitter and wanted access in case a Fast Getaway became desireable. I'd have to say both of these ladies were displaying exactly the mood of the entire room. Merriment prevailed!

As the clock moved toward 7:00 pm, the air became charged with anticipation. You see here the reverential attitude of Knitters Waiting for Their Icon. Near as I could tell, all the seats were filled, bags and baskets settled and opened, coffees or sandwiches consumed, and the anticipation became peaceful and delighted. There is a calm settles over knitters as they begin to knit that is the very essence of comfort. (On the other hand, I'm not naive - if someone had stood up and said "FREE MERINO TO THE FIRST FIVE......" you can bet that all semblance of quiet and tranquility would evaporate. Fast.

Doesn't this say it all?

I'm just going to put some Photographic Evidence here (taken, might I add, with my new camera, without flash !

She always begins by photographing the Sock against the backdrop of The Happiest People in Town....

The Border's lady asked if she wanted to sit down, and she said "NO!", bringing a chuckle from all of us who knew she'd been sitting in airports, sitting on planes, sitting in cars....and was NOT about to sit down again!

The whole of her presentation was made with a thin sheaf of papers in her hand; she glanced at them occasionally, went to the next -- but she speaks from her heart, and while we all laughed so much that I was stiff in the stomach for three days, SO much of what she says is mere truth, wisdom, keen observation. She reveals herself as she speaks - and what she reveals is One of US. She's a mom, a wife, a knitter and a writers; she deals with not only knitterly issues but ordinary household daily Awfuls (and she's no lover of the Awful Maths either, although they're not the boss of her!)

She talked about not being taken seriously; she talked about the image non-knitters have when they hear "Knitter" (old lady with grey hair in a bun, sitting in a rocking chair knitting with a cat in her lap). Come on, you know it's true! Then she talked about how we really are, and about how there is genuine scientific documentation that complicated actions repeated over and over are PROVEN to be helpful in the prevention of Alzheimer's and dementia. She talked about the kind of concentrated patience we garner from knitting....well, she talked about a LOT. And it was LITERALLY as if we were all sitting around a huge kitchen table (HERS....or OURS....) There was no separation between US and HER like you see in general Hero-and-Fan situations.

When she wrapped up, she added one small note that made us all even love her more (I'd bet you two skeins of hand-painted lace-weight alpaca none of us would've believed that possible): she said that, in spite of Border's clever plan of colored wristbands so the book-signing could be orderly (it was) SHE was doing the airplane thing (she's obviously had a lot of experience there) and go with the "pre-boarding" plan. To wit: anyone with babies, small children or any other reason that might make it difficult for them to wait around, she would sign THEIR books first.

Ladies and gentlemen, ponder that for a minute. I'll wait. Let it really sink in.

Then the booksigning for the rest of us commenced, and was lovely; we all enjoyed visiting with one another while we waited, and (I had noticed this when we saw her in Eau Claire, too) she does not rush. She chats, warmly, with everyone - and her interest in each of us is genuine. She really IS our friend, our mentor (never mind our idol) and virtually everyone comes away feeling knowing we've been with our peeps, including herself.

The signing of books begins, and besides affording us each her signature in our books, we each got our moment to chat. Furthermore - there was no limit of how MANY books she would sign for each of us! No one took gross advantage, and there again, we were all satisfied! The culmination of the evening was that we each got Our Moment to chat (and when mine came, I felt like she and I were old friends, chatting for a moment on the street - meant a lot to me!).

When our books were signed, our pictures taken, and our knitting bags packed up, we all wandered off to resume our daily lives....improved, might I say. GREATLY improved and enhanced by our visit from the Yarn Harlot.

EDITOR'S NOTE: this post took me all week to write; I have lots more pictures but have reached the limit of my patience at getting 'em WHERE I want, &c. Since the glorious Visit I've done other things about which it's time to write. Suffice it to say, my attendance, the company of all those knitters (ALL dear friends, some of whom I knew before), the delight that is Stephanie, the inspiration to me as a knitter, the comfort of being in a large group of My Peeps ... which phrase I love, and like to say since it's unlikely coming out of a 65-year-old......all of those things had a profound effect on me. I COULD go on an on, but it appears I already have. I think y'all can figure out whatever else I'd say.

No Pictures.....

Lay-deeeez and Gennulmens! Welcome to the No Photo Moment here at CS&B. No sweet kitties, no wondrous flowers, no WIPs, nothing. In fact.......not even any pictures of my new couch, a very handsome acquisition which replaces the hateful ...uhm... odious ...err...UGLY loveseat-hide-a-bed which I DID love for many years but which had deteriorated out of my affection. (So tell us, Dale-Harriet, how did you really feel about that couch?) But seriously, folks, our lovely new piece of furniture...which it occurs to me may well be the FIRST piece of furniture...other than our bed, which is around 24 years old....we have ever actually BOUGHT, is lovely, comfortable, sizeable and perhaps best of all, cost us the princely sum of $60 at a very nice resale shop, roughly half the cost of a tank of gas. Ignore the wild sobbing, I'll be myself in a moment.

NOTE: I think I've won the weekly prize for the longest and possibly worst-constructed sentence in the blogosphere.

So ENNYWAYS. Not even pictures of the couch. Here's why:

Yesterday, the very day on which #1 Son and Mr Dearling managed the transfer of yuccchy couch to the curb and lovely new couch to the living room, Mr Dearling ALSO took me to select my this-year's anniversary present. And THAT just happens to be....

A. NEW. CAMERA !! Our anniversary is a couple of weeks off, but he wanted me to have some time to learn it before we head out to New York for a massive yarn crawl and historical tour the graduation of our nephew from Skidmore.

Therefore, be forewarned: there WILL be pictures of the new couch, and the kitties, and flowers, of WIPs and stash pictures....oh, and pictures of the visit next Monday of the Yarn Harlot to our very own little village of Madison, "sixty-three miles surrounded by Reality"!

WATCH THIS SPACE!

Spr(o)ing!

Remember the Earth day pictures of my ruddy little determined peonies? Well, the next day was another of those days we dream of all winter: low '70s, gentle breeze, sunshine so warm you can feel the Vitamin D being sucked into your skin. On such a day, early in the morning, the peonies have a conversation. Goes something like this:

Peony One: OK, it's time. We can all see over the dead leaves; the Woman has pulled away all the dead effluvia from last year; our wire frame is in position. Everyone ready?

Other Peonies: YEAH! (mumbling is heard: "how come HE gets to decide?" "I thought it was MY turn this year" "Wait, I didn't hear what he said..." "Shut up back there, he said it's TIME" "Oh")

All together: GROWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!



I am not making this up, that's one day's growth. Because of some rearrangement of branches, I think there'll be enough sun on these guys this year that they'll manage more than the usual 2-3 blossoms. I didn't know, when I planted these guys, that peonies need a great deal of sunshine to make flowers. My neighbors all have peonies that bloom so hard it wears them out and they droop over.

The forecast for today is for rain, which is NOT a bad thing. I suspect that everything else will show progress too. The trillium already have buds (I counted seven!) and there are thin spikes all around them which will be lilies-of-the-valley. There's a small area at the back of my yard that is my pride and joy: besides the trillium there's a columbine, a slowly-growing population of jacks-in-the-pulpits (are they not the dearest things?) and all the LOTV. There is a short period of time, and I WILL get pictures, when the myriad violets are in bloom, the "white silver bells upon their slender stalks" are abundant, and those wonderful wild plants are standing proud. I really cherish that little area.

There are also these delicate, beautiful little guys, who grow into ferns. Not a lot of them, just enough to add a real "woodlands" feel to the scene. I have the Overactive Imagination required of historic reenactors, (and, I suspect, writers of children's stories) and that little plot is a perfect habitation for the faeries that I know live in the little toad house back there. I'll try to post pictures of them; sometimes in the dusk when the fireflies are out, the faeries emerge to dance, tend the flowers and do a little gardening of their own.......


I'm counting down. It's still Passover, you see. In keeping with tradition, I made what you see here: a lovely noodle kugel , my mother's recipe. *Dale-Harriet, 'scuse me, but we in the back here don't know what a noodle kugel is.* Why, I'm so very glad you asked! Noodle kugel is a milchig dish, meaning "dairy". It has noodles (I bet you guessed that); it also has cottage cheese, eggs (for binding), raisins, cinnamon and almonds. It's good hot, it's good cold. It's good room temperature. It's good with a little sour cream on. It's good with a glass of milk. If you're having it with tea you can have real cream.

My other "speciality" is Genuine Jewish Mother's Top-o'-the-Line Home-Made Chicken Soup with My Superior Matzoh Balls. Legendary. The very soup Lovely Daughter begs for when she's Coming Down With something. That, of course, is fleishig . I also have a HUGE appreciation for cold boiled chicken, a happy side product of the soup. Of course, with THAT meal, you need to have non-dairy cream, and the only one I've found is Rich's, which does, as a matter of fact, really taste like genuine cream. In spite of separating meat and milk, and having only matzoh, I eat plenty fine during Passover.

By the way, there is a very efficient and complete History of the Jewish People: "They tried to kill us. They failed. Let's eat!"

SHORT RANT: Time was, you could find non-dairy margarine; I think Fleischmann's had one, and there were a couple of other kinds too. Same also with "non-dairy creamer". If you look at "pure vegetable margarine", for example, and you read all that tee-tiny wordage on the back or the bottom, you almost invariably find "WHEY" listed. Remember "whey"? Remember Little Miss Arachnophobe? Guess what, whey is another word for MILK SOLIDS. This year I finally found something; I'm not remembering the name (and it doesn't say on the clever little "individual 8 oz. cups") but it's something heart-healthy. Never saw it before, but to its credit, it does taste all right on matzoh. (Keep in mind, if you run out of matzoh you can cut the box into pieces and eat it with very little notice that it's not the genuine article.) END OF RANT

All of this is fine. Passover ends tomorrow at sundown. Here's another family tradition: after sundown, at the end of Passover, we go out to eat. The family tradition is to try to break every single dietary law...on ONE PLATE! Of course, we're pretty much good at it now. The popular choices usually include pepperoni and sausage pizza or bacon double cheeseburger. You have your meat AND your milk (and pork products) not to mention regular bread. Of course, in order to REALLY break them all there would have to be a shrimp cocktail in there, or an order of mussels or something. But you know, just sayin'.

I'm writing from my son's house - where I'm babysitting for possibly the smartest, cutest most trying , sweetest, most adorable paschkudniks you've ever seen. The smarts they got from Grandma Dale. The rest is direct genetics from their Papa (except a lot of the "cute" and "sweet", which is from their Maman).