Dogs Steal Yarn

Nothing says summer like wool socks

Thumper and I braved the heat today (Have I mentioned that we don't like the heat?) to procure needles for the unruly stealth knitting project. I didn't want to keep him out too long in the heat, so we stayed local, going to Stitch Therapy. I went there intending to buy two pairs of Addis for sleeves on two circs. They didn't have Addis in the size I needed--they had Susan Bates metal circs or Clover bamboos. I already know that I hate the cables of those damn Clover needles with the heat of a thousand angry something or others (work with me here, I'm writing fast while I can grab a moment). I was wary of the Susan Bates needles because, well...they're cheap. But I didn't have much choice. I bought them.

What do you do when you go into a yarn shop intending to buy Addis ($$$) and leave having bought Susan Bates ($)? Spend the difference on sock yarn, of course.

Colinette Jitterbug in Cari colors. (I don't know the number of the colorway because the price sticker was covering it and it tore when I took the sticker off.)

Anyone used this Jitterbug stuff yet? How did you like it?

As promised, the orange Trekking sock (colorway #145). (See, Claudia? I told you you need this stuff. It's the ultimate Claudia sock yarn. I'm almost ashamed that I'm knitting them for myself and not you. Almost.)

Just a wee bit of sock so far, and it will have to be put aside now that the stealth sleeves are back in action. Which brings me to the Susan Bates needles. I was pleasantly surprised by how relaxed the cable is, but the joins? Damn, the joins are bad. The last couple stitches of each row snag on that join every time. Looks like I won't be replacing my Addis anytime soon. At least not with these. I do want to give the KnitPicks Options needles a try, though. So next time I need a needle but can wait a few days for it, I'll go the KnitPicks route.

And on the topic of socks, have you seen Cassie's beautiful new pattern? Do go take a look.

Tonight’s insomnia is sponsored by...

…the buyer whose offer we accepted this weekend who then pulled out of the deal this morning to “pursue another house that just came back on the market.”

Great. Good luck with that, guy. So glad we spent our Memorial Day weekend negotiating with you.

Verbal agreements mean nothing in NYC real estate. I’ve been on the other side of it, having pulled out of two deals (for good reasons) before buying my co-op in ’99, and was on this unpleasant side of it before when the first buyer of my co-op pulled out of that deal the day they were supposed to sign the damn contract. (Taking the apartment off the market for three weeks in the process. Charming of them. I hope their cold feet developed corns.) The co-op did sell, as will the house. And at least this guy got out of the deal quickly. And I can’t really blame him, because you should of course buy the house you love best and apparently he loves this other house best, but…

…why doesn’t he love OUR house best? I loved our house best. I think everyone should. Meh. So this guy, and then we had an earlier offer that was just way too low and turned out it wasn’t a lowball offer but just someone who couldn’t afford the house and…

…and I’m totally oversharing here. Somehow I’m much warier about posting business goings on than I was about sharing the indignities of the pregnancy last year. Hmmm. Interesting…money matters are more private than bodily functions? I guess so.

It’s funny, isn’t it, what we will and won’t share on our blogs? I remember a time when most of us wouldn’t post our faces on the blogs. Nearly every FO shot had the head cut off. Mine too, for the longest time. And then one by one the faces started appearing. Who showed their face first? Anyone remember? Of course, some people are still camera shy.

Sometimes I’m afraid I’ll regret later having so many pictures of myself and my family available online. I wonder who’s maybe grabbing them and for what purposes. But then I think…yeah? So what. What's the worst someone could really do with those photos? They're images of us, not our actual flesh. (Though I do think I'll probably post fewer pictures of Thumper as he gets older and starts to venture out into the world.) I’d miss the community of the blogs if I didn’t share the occasional photo. I mean…sharing glimpses of our lives is part of what we’re doing here, how we’re connecting. I don’t get nearly enough knitting time anymore to just talk about the knits. Not that I ever really did. I think this was a purely knitting blog for about five minutes in the spring of 2003.

So I post pictures of myself and my husband and my baby, and I tell you that we had an accepted offer that fell through…and then I set my Myspace profile to private so only my friends can view it. And there’s far less up there than there is available here. Go figure.

Speaking of knitting (I was, sort of, in a round about way, wasn’t I?), the stealth knitting project is misbehaving and I need an equipment change to whip it into shape. Which means Thumper and I (another nod to privacy there. Though someone once actually asked in a comment if that was his real name) are heading out on a needle-buying adventure tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ve been amusing myself with non-stealth knitting. Specifically socks for me. In orange Trekking. Mmmmm….Trekking. I’ll take a photo tomorrow.

This weekend...

...we went to the toddler playground (the tot lot) and had it nearly to ourselves because the rest of New York was in the Hamptons and Fire Island. And we got really really dirty.

We napped.

We ate fiddlehead ferns sauteed with garlic, soba noodles, and an absolutely perfect acorn squash.

Thumper didn't eat the ferns but he loved everything else.

We played peekaboo.

And we danced.

And danced.

I hope you had a great weekend.

Insomnia, again

Summer heat has set in. Way too early for it, and I hope it doesn't last. I don't like the heat. Not at all. Thumper is asleep next to me, Billy asleep next to him, Diego asleep at the foot of the bed, beneath a blanket in spite of the warm night (Italian greyhounds are weird like that). Oscar is asleep in the wastepaper basket, as usual.

Thumper is sleeping in just a diaper (again, the heat) and I've been lying awake and looking at him. Noticing that his body is a little boy's body now. Not a baby anymore. He's still soft, but there's a difference now, muscles beneath that softness. I love watching him grow and develop, love how confident he is and how excited to explore the world around him...but I can understand now the temptation to have many babies. (Though we're planning for just one more.) Already I miss that sleepy little bundle of the early months. Have I said this before? I'm sure I have. I feel like I have the same realizations over and over again. "I can't believe how big he's become" and "It's all going by so quickly." Rinse. Repeat.

Many showings of the house this week, some coming back for a second look. I'm hoping we're coming close to an end, an offer, a contract. I'm tired of keeping the house show-ready, tired of rushing around to clean and straighten, tired of tucking the toys away in one room as if a baby didn't live here. Tired of wandering the neighborhood with the baby and the dog while people walk through the house and look at our stuff. I'm a very private person (why do I have a blog, then? Good question). I don't enjoy this opening up of the house to strangers, but it's kind of hard to sell a house if you won't let anyone inside. I'm ready for this part of the adventure to be over, please. Maybe then I'll actually get some sleep at night again.

The letting go? The going with the flow? It's not so hard during the day. But at night I chew over it all. Play out scenarios. Worry. Have grandiose fantasies of bidding wars over both house and novel. It's after 3 am. The baby will wake up to nurse at 7 am and will then likely go back to sleep until 9 am (he and I are late sleepers). If I get to sleep in the next 30 minutes, I stand a decent chance of being almost well rested. Think I can do it? Yeah. Me neither.

Stealth knitting continues

The project I can't tell you about continues, and I'm liking it very much. I wish I could show it to you. I think you, too, might like it very much. But all in due time.

Billy found one of our headlamps in the jumble of the kitchen junk/tool drawer, so this knitting-in-the-dark stuff has gotten a whole lot easier. He found it a bit late, though, as I'd already moved on to a long stretch of stockinette, which I don't need to be able to see. But the headlamp also works for staying up way too late reading and for getting a geeky charge out of feeling a bit like John Cusack's character in Sixteen Candles. It's also good for momentarily blinding anyone you look at. Billy walked into the room a little while ago and I looked up, forgetting I had the headlamp strapped on (I'd been reading while the baby slept) and he did that throw-your-hand-up-to-shield-your-eyes move like you see on police procedural shows when a cop's got their flashlight turned on someone. You know the move. It was a cool moment. And then I remembered that I had a headlamp on my forehead and it would probably leave a really uncool strap mark when I took it off. But at least I was able to read the book in front of me. Which brings it right back around to cool.

Wow. Rambling. Totally rambling. Sorry about that.

It's the stealth knitting. It trips me up. Because there isn't that much else to talk about right now. (So why are you blogging, Cari? I don't know. Habit?)

The weather is lovely. Thumper is thriving. Billy rocks. All is well. No news to report here. Yawn.

In lieu of anything interesting on my part, how about a photo of dirty baby feet after a good time playing in a park in Portland? At the end of the day (and I mean the end of an actual day, not that metaphorical "at the end of the day" that gets so overused), a tired, dirty kid is a happy kid.

Lizbon had a great post the other day that really hit home for me. All this planning and plotting, real estate hunting and list making...racing ahead to the time when we'll be not here, when we'll be in Portland, starting some shiny new future life... I've been so caught up in the planning and dreaming and hoping that I keep forgetting to notice that I'm here, right now. Thumper is here, right now. Billy is here right now. In Brooklyn. Living our very nice current life. There are irises blooming in the garden. The peony bush is budding.

I've said it before--I'm a bad Buddhist. A craving, clinging, rollercoaster Buddhist. I haven't meditated since the baby was born. But I try. I try sincerely. Lizbon's post gave me the jolt I needed. All this worrying about "when will the house sell and how much will we get for it?" and "when will the book sell and how much will I get for it?" and "what if our favorite houses in Portland are all sold before we can sell our house" and etc etc etc...

It's a good thing I can't actually control all the things in the universe I wish I could control. So many times when I thought I knew how things should go, knew what I wanted, I got something else and it turned out to be exactly right. Everything is as it should be. Who the hell am I to worry over pulling the strings? All I can do is my honest best, each day. I take what actions are in my power to take, and I let the rest go. So simple, but so fucking hard to do. Let go.

The house will sell or it won't. Most likely it will. The book will sell or it won't. Most likely it will. I keep the house clean and in good repair. I wrote and revised the book to the best of my abililty. That's all I can do, and it's enough.

As for what I can do in the larger picture, I also do what I can with the resources I have. I try to be kind to the people I meet. I try to have compassion. I vote whenever given the opportunity. I reuse. I recycle. I donate to worthy causes within my means.

As the wise man in Lizbon's post said, "God knows what to give." It doesn't matter what your concept of god is. I find this to be true. I don't personally believe in a sentient godhead. No man with a long beard for me. I do believe we're all connected. I do believe we're all here, in it together. All a part of the energy that makes up this universe. And I do believe that energy is in balance.

I need to remember that. I need to stop trying to run the show.

passing thoughts after midnight

Billy, Thumper, Diego, and Oscar are asleep. I'm sitting up in bed, knitting, the Itty Bitty Booklight illuminating my pattern notes. Well, sort of. I think it might be more efficient to wear a headlamp for this late-night-knitting stuff. That way I could see my notes AND my knitting.

It's secret knitting, so I can't show it to you or talk about it. It's secret deadline knitting, actually, which is why I'm staying up to work on it. Is this still a knitting blog if i can't show you or talk about the knitting being done? Hell, for all I know I've been kicked off the knitting blog ring ages ago. I can't remember the last time I clicked around on that ring. Why back in the day (cue creaky old voice) you could surf through the entire knitting blog ring on one cup of coffee... etc etc etc

Yes, I'm tired. And because my knitting is deadline knitting somehow that makes it something I need to take breaks from, hence the blogging.

Not that I'm actually saying anything here.

La di da di da da da...

Yeah... I've got nothing. And I really should get back to the knitting.

Sorry. False alarm. No actual blog post here.

Re-entry

We're home. We flew in on the red-eye Friday night/Saturday morning, but just got home this evening. The weekend was spent with my family in New Jersey--my nephew's second birthday party was on Saturday (sleeeeeepy sleeeeepy Cari and Billy) and Sunday was, of course, Mother's Day.

As for the flight home, I nursed and walked Thumper to sleep in his sling at the gate, so he was out before we even boarded. He slept until a half hour before landing, at which point he woke up happy and ready to cuddle and play with Daddy's watch. Total traveling champ. We asked a lot of him this week and he handled it all beautifully. I'm very proud of my adaptable little guy.

Highlights of a trip full of highlights:

Picnic in Sellwood Park (prepared foods from New Seasons. Mmmmm):

Potluck at Kent's house and teaching him to knit:

Driving to Eugene via the scenic route (yeah, so it's kind of hard to take photos from a moving car):

Stopping in McMinnville to give Thumper a break and finding a yarn store:

Inside the yarn store, while getting lost in the sock yarn (I bought orange Trekking!), overhearing Billy say, "Hey! They have Elizabeth Zimmerman on DVD!" Knitters, I was so proud. You can imagine how the women who worked there reacted. I think they'll be talking about the husband who knew from EZ for quite some time.

Driving back to Portland from Eugene late at night, and the sky bigger and more full of stars than I think I've ever seen before in my life. No photos. Just close your eyes and imagine a perfect clear night over Oregon farmland.

Standing on a corner in Sellwood, belly full of breakfast from Fat Albert's, cup of really good coffee in my hand, the baby asleep in the sling, and smelling woodsmoke in the air.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled life. We need to sell our house so we can get moving (literally).

Send house-selling vibes, please.

PDX, yo

We leave Portland tonight, but we'll be back for sure. We love it. We're moving. Woohoo!

More when we get back home.

Portland, the first three days

Here we are in Portland, checking it out. I'm trying the city on for size and Billy is having meetings to check out job opportunities. We arrived on Saturday.

Thumper did really well on the plane.

At the end of the flight we received many compliments on how good-natured he is. I'll admit our fellow passengers looked nervous when they saw us boarding with a baby. No problems, though. He nursed on the way up and the way down, slept for about an hour and a half and played happily with us most of the rest of the time. There was a bit of fussing when he got tired, but it couldn't have amounted to more than a few minutes total for the whole five-hour flight. Quite a relief. I was nervous about the flight. We didn't get him his own seat, but the flight was only half booked so we had a row to ourselves.

The weather has been dry and sunny for the most part, so apparently I'm not getting much of a sense of Portland weather. This city is so beautiful it's almost unreal. Seriously seriously unreal.

See--sunny:

Giraffe parking:

The central library, land of very friendly, helpful librarians:

I'm finding it impossible to take photos that get across just how lush this place is. I mean...everywhere trees and shrubs and most of them in flower; these great towering willows and oaks shouldering over the streets. The entire city smells like honeysuckle. Seriously. But I can't take a single picture that gets that across. It's stunning...absolutely stunning. I've done a decent amount of traveling, and I didn't know a city could be like this.

Billy had meetings today, so Thumper and I were on our own to wander around and explore. We may have stumbled across a yarn store and I may have accidentally bought a skein of Sea Wool. Whoops.

Later on, we met up with Billy and did some more exploring and stumbled across another yarn store, which was closed. Sad for me. Good for my budget:

Tomorrow we start looking at houses. I'm rather excited about that. The sun has been lovely, but I'm kind of hoping for a bit of rain before we leave, so I can see what the weather's usually like.

I've only got intermittent web access, but I'll check in again before we leave on Friday.

Back in the saddle, baby

Late-breaking news from my most wonderful agent. She's happy with the latest novel revision. The book, it's heading back out into the world in search of a loving publisher.

Which means:
1. Woot!

2. Now I get to stress again about when/if/how it will sell rather than stressing about when/if/how it will be ready to start making the rounds again.

3. I can get back to work on the abandoned next novel. I've missed it. All this time I've been revising the first one, I really wanted to be working on the second one. It's like falling head over heels for someone new and then having to go away on a year-long business trip with your ex.

So, let the anxious hopeful stress begin. Again.

Fingers. Cross 'em if ya got 'em.

Thumper's big airplane adventure

We'll be in Portland next week, visiting with friends out there and looking at houses. I'm so excited! Have I mentioned that I've never been there? Yes, I believe I have. And yes, I do trust Billy that much, that we're moving to a city I don't know at all, based on his belief that I'll love it.

Of course, if next week I find that I don't love it, we can change our plans. But I don't see that happening. Everything I've heard about the place just sounds so damn wonderful. (Yes, no place is perfect. Yes it won't be all sweetly misting rain and roses. I know this. But still.)

We'll be looking at houses with the great realtor who Mandy introduced us to. We'll be exploring the city. Pawing through the stacks at Powells. Drinking too much coffee. Also I'm planning to meet up with Mariko, at long last in the real world. Turns out there are so many of you who live in Portland, and I want to meet you too! There probably won't be time during this trip, since we'll be house-hunting, but once we're moved in I would so love it if we could pull together some kind of knitting gathering so I can get to know the PDX knitters. Maybe a yarn crawl?

Speaking of yarn (which I don't seem to do nearly enough these days on this alleged knitting blog), Kent, the friend who's putting us up next week, wants to learn to knit. He asked me--no cajoling needed on my part. I'll do my best to document the process. Fingers crossed for a successful knitty conversion. He wants to make matching hats for himself and his girlfriend. Yes, I teased him about that ever so slightly. He can take it.

Jenn will be staying with Diego and Oscar to make sure they don't throw any wild parties or give all my Fiestaware away to the neighbors. Diego's quite excited about the prospect of sharing a bed with Jenn for the week. I hope he isn't too disappointed when we come back.

This will be Thumper's first flight. Any advice on air travel with a ten and a half month old?