So what ARE you up to,

Dale-Harriet?

Well, for one thing, KNITTING! Oh, yes I am (admittedly just a row or two, here and there). But you know, "slow and steady", right? OK, get this:

It is DONE! FINI! Well.... almost . I still have to weave in three ends and, having meditated, prayed, thought, whined, stamped, cried, and sulked, I have decided that YES, I'm going to put nice fringes on each end. Just seemed dumb not to, like putting together a really beautiful pie and then not baking it, you know? (This is not to suggest I have ever put together a really beautiful pie, so don't bother asking.) But at this point, I still have at least the beginnings of that delicious feeling you get when something is completed. I don't think I'll tell the recipient until I'm actually ENTIRELY done, because I anticipate him jumping from one foot to the next and chomping on his knuckles in eager anticipation; I'd hate to interfere by giving him an idea when it will be his.

This is that Dramatic Moment - when I was literally half-way done with the very last row before casting off. With Previously-Unknown Fortitude I stopped (!) and laid it out for this picture. And because I'm (basically) an honest person, I will admit that, when I sat down to finish that row, I experienced just the TEETINIEST millesecond...nanosecond (is that shorter?) of a slight, vague inclination to....KEEP IT ALL TO MYSELF!!! (insert wicked cackle here). However - better judgement .... upstanding morals .... strong sense of honor .... the realization that it's 12' long and I'm just under 5' long, stopped me. The truth is, if I wrapped it four times around my neck it would still drag on the ground and trip me -- and that's assuming I could even walk with all that weight hanging around my neck. Nope. It'll be "Merry Christmas, Rick...and here's what you owe me."

OH no. This is NOT a gift. There IS a list of people I love enough to knit one of these for.....this chap's not on it. Heck, I made Lovely Daughter finish her own when I started knitting one for HER those years back, and I DO love her enough. Just sayin' is all.

I have also been preparing food and enjoying a visit from a Pack of Wild Indians. Some time back I decided it would be fun to have Theme Dinners for two of my little grandsons (the third has a sketchy schedule; hopefully we'll be able to include him at some point). It was time for the Red Indian dinner, and their mom said they "had a surprise for me". I have, as you know, quite the imagination, and I was a little worried. I needn't have.

They just Came Prepared! I LOVED IT! I mean, how cute is that? They'd made feathered headdresses, spears, (Dad's holding the tomahawk, we forgot to hand it to them for the picture); they had painted lines on their faces and they were READY!

NOTE: Overlook the Transformer costume on Xander and the brutal wrestler on Domanic's shirt. They are, after all, four and seven.

We had roast buffalo hump hunted by Grampy (ok, it was eye of round, beef. Use your imaginations.) We had corn and squash stew with maple sugar, and wild rice with wild mushrooms and nuts. (OK - frozen squash, canned corn, and the wild mushrooms came out of a particularly feisty can of Golden Mushroom soup. IMAGINATION! ). We also cheated considerably and had maple-nut ice cream for dessert. Nevermind.

It was incredibly fun, and we taught the boys some Ojibway words and our favorite message in native hand-sign language. I'd have to say it was a great success, a good time was had by all (even Their-Dad-My-Son who, at 41, is still at the eye-rolling stage). And before they left, their Mama said "What's the theme for the next one?" and Domanic said, without hesitation, "AFRICAN!"

So tell me - does Trader Joe's have canned elephant?

And in conclusion, the reason I haven't been around here much. I told you earlier on that I am participating in NaNoWriMo , the National Novel-Writing Month. To that end, may I say, I am ON SCHEDULE! Yes, folks, as we enter the third week, I can say that I am half-way through, and it looks (she said, hoping it doesn't jinx it) that I WILL end up with a 50,000 WORD novel at the end of the month. May I reiterate that it will be easily in the top five "Worst Collections of Words Ever Compiled By Someone Not a Monkey." I have this one character, a priest, who not only blathered for about five pages but caused my OTHER priest to do the same thing. They're both in Time-Out,waiting to see if they're allowed back in. But the word-count is up and all's well.

I have a secret: I hired a taskmaster to make sure that I'm keeping on-task, who yells at me LOUDLY if I leave my writing room for more than a trip to the bif. Excuses don't cut it, and outright exhaustion, I am told, is "NO EXCUSE!" Yeah, well - that's easy for her to say, she usually sleeps the whole time I'm working!

OOOPS! Woke her up by stopping typing to insert photo. (At least she can't tell the difference between novel-writing and blogging.) It's true, though, I put the throw next to the laptop because when she was just sitting on the hard, cold desk her looks were more baleful than usual, but if I start wandering away from the laptop she follows me yelling. To her credit - if I actually turn OFF the laptop she recognizes that I'm going away for a purpose, and -- figuring there'll be food involved, she follows me yelling. Cats.