This is so hard

Mack the Wonder Dog is getting old.

This is, of course, to be expected.

But since his diagnosis of diabetes, he's been facing more and more challenges. First the diabetic neurapathy, making his hips weaker. He's still drinking a lot, as we struggle to stabilize his blood glucose. Sometimes he wakes a person up in the night to go out and pee. Sometimes he wakes people two and three times a night, and I tell you, standing in the rain in just a t-shirt at 3 am waiting for my elderly dog to finish in the yard is not my idea of a great time. And for the last couple of days, we've realized that his sight is going. Apparently diabetes can speed the formation of cataracts, which he already has.

Now the vet is telling me to buy a harness to help him go downstairs -- we live on the first floor of a house, up a flight of stairs front and back -- as he's afraid because he can't see the step under his feet.

I'm growing very weary. Nothing seems bad enough to say, "Enough!" but it adds up to a sad twilight with this fine, and truly noble, dog. He doesn't seem to bee too pained, just sort of foggy.

It's just hard. I don't want to be the grownup. I don't want to carry him into the vet because he won't go where he can't see. I don't want to worry about him all the time. I don't want to be the one who has to make the final call. Sarafina wants a puppy, and when I say versions of "Over my dead body," it's not only the thought of all the work a puppy makes, and the idea of the freedom of a non-dog life. I also (I realized today) don't want to do this part again. It's just too hard.

Bit by bit

The rain this morning was perfect for running. Not too hard, just a teensy mist that softened every edge, the heads of the daffodils hanging heavy with water despite the lightness of the rain. They reminded me strongly of when I worked as a gardener's elf in Virginia, at a very posh horse farm. I learned to deadhead and mulch, and that I really didn't care much about growing non-edibles, but I did love to arrange cut flowers. That was as close to the posh as I ever got.

As I was making my way through my pitifully short gradually increasing length run, I was thinking about how like knitting it is. I'm nowhere near where I'd like to be, running-wise, but I'm slowly getting back to where I was before I started getting sick (over and over and over) last October. And I run on faith, that if I keep putting one foot in front of the other, I'll get to the point where running will feel effortless again.

Knitting might not ever be what I'd consider "effortless;" my brain just doesn't work that way, but if I keep stacking up stitches, then objects will keep getting finished. Not just the snowflake sweater, but things like this little bonbon, made up while Eric and I were reading out loud to each other last night. [Currently, my book is much funnier than his book.] I was asked for socks by the smallest-footed person in the house, so sock(s) I made.

Scratchy natural wool, unhappily dyed with Koolaid many years ago for trim for my now-eight year old nephew's toddler sweater. Caterina doesn't seem to mind the scratchy, as she's running around with just one on her foot right now. Better hurry for the second one.

They're all unique

That's at least what I hear about snowflakes; we don't get enough snow here for me to do any personal research.

My only recent experience with the singular nature of snowflakes was a wooly type. I finally (finally!) finished the Stashbuster Raglan, and was embroidering snowflakes along the red band, as I'd planed.


"How hard could it be?" I asked myself. Well, three snowflakes in, I realized that for me, it was "hard," perhaps "impossible," to embroider snowflakes I was both happy with and that bore some relationship to one another, designwise.

Duplicate stitch! That would surely save me. Nope. Apparently making duplicate stitches resemble one another in more than a third-cousin-once-removed way is also beyond my capacities.


Leaving it with just one finally made the most sense, I figured. We'll go with the "it's as unique as you are" approach.


He doesn't seem to care that I managed to knit one red arm-end with a too small needle, since I picked up the last needle I'd made the rolled edge on the other one to finish the second. He just likes it because it's warm and soft. I don't think I'd do the purl ridges on the arms again.


They look a little bit like weird arm gauntlets, but the bustin' out all over apricot doesn't mind, either. And I don't live in Blueland, it was just evening when I took the picture.

The brown cat doesn't mind the children, as long as they're asleep.


Oh! For those of you who care, I pulled a total Bee Whisperer move yesterday! I had talked with a new beekeeper at the Association meeting on Tuesday evening, and he was telling me about his mentor, who works his bees barehanded and often veilless. And yesterday, I wanted to super one of my hives. Didn't want to get in it, didn't want to powder sugar them to treat for Varroa mites, just wanted to make sure I got that honey super on before the flow.

So without changing any clothes or suiting up, I walked to the hive, and with lots of slowness, eased off the top cover very slowly, set it on top of the super, and turned toward the hive. A bee landed on my hand. So I made like a statue, and held very very still. Tor called across the yard, "What are you doing?" I just said, "Waiting for this bee to fly away." After some moments, she took off. Various other bees had been landing on my shirt and pants, but just sitting there and flying off when they were done doing whatever they were doing.

Without moving my feet too much, I turned again toward the super, grasped the sides, and pivoted to place it on the now-topless hive. I didn't want to crush any bees, so I placed the first corner of the super on one corner of the hive, then gently, so gently, lowered it along the sides so any bees in the way could move. Once it was on, I walked away.

Then I felt the shakes. Apparently I'm not quite the Zen beekeeper I was acting as. Not yet. I don't think I'll open hives at least without veils, but it made me feel as though I was making some progress.

In other catch-up news, I'm still maintaining the running schedule, although my slowness and literal feeling that I'm "hauling ass" down the street (like dragging a bag of rocks) hasn't changed much. And I'm supposed to be on a panel discussion on local food production for Earth Day, so I have to get my talking ducks in a row. Someone asked me yesterday how many hours a week I knit. I laughed and laughed. I consider it a bonus day if I even get to pick up needles lately. With four kids, three classes to teach, and a household to run, who has time?

Dreams Can Come True

Last night I knit and watched a movie on the laptop with Sarafina, while poor Eric slept next to us. Even though we were using earphones, we're movie-talkers, and he found it amusing that we couldn't just watch quietly. Didn't keep him from snoring away. Being really sick will do that for you, I guess. Anyhow, I woke up this morning -- for the final time -- from a dream involving John McCain's tailless silent helicopter, about which I said, "No matter how cool it is, it's not worth sitting with him to get to ride in it." Subsequently in my dream, I was contacting a student in one of my classes, and going through someone's estranged father's custom-made study: drawers for everything, including old letters. I remember thinking, "I have more old letters than these; no matter how beautiful the cabinetry, this study isn't very practical."

I called the student up, and apparently the student's mother disapproved mightily of this Older Woman calling, even though I wanted to talk about the missing paper. And then I realized what I was riffling through the study for -- the perfect Blueberry Cinnamon Swirl Coffee Cake recipe!

In my dream I never found it, but on my run through the quiet streets this morning, I figured it wouldn't be that hard to do, so after I got home, I boiled eggs to assuage any guilt, and pulled a Bill Cosby. Behold, breakfast:


Not enough blueberries for the berry-lovers and too many for the berry-haters, but it is a compromise, even if it is a dream come true.


Before succumbing to the Land of Nod after the movie, I'd done the collar on this little beauty. I figured that it was all done, short of weaving ends and embroidering snowflakes.


Then Tor tried it on this morning, and in a medical miracle, apparently his arms have grown two inches overnight. Sigh. This entire stashbusting sweater has been a labor of knit, rip, reknit, rerip, and still it's getting done. Just a little slowly, and there are two skeins of green sock yarn wanting to be knit into Embossed Leaves and a rainbow Kauni still patiently waiting for attention.

This alpaca sweater fits Caterina very well, but when I suggested that she ask her brother if he still wanted it, and she interpreted that as an opportunity to prance in front of him wearing it and announcing, "Do you want this, because it fits me!" he screamed, "Mine! mine!"

It's nothing but amity and high level communication around here, I tell you. Let them eat cake.

Has it really been 14 years?

I went out for a brief run this morning (I'm still not quite admitting to a Training Program, but still) in the rain-washed air. Then it struck me -- fourteen years ago I had just done something really hard, too.

I haven't scanned the old pictures, but I had just given birth to a baby, my first one. She'd started in one of the most beautiful deserts in the U.S., and despite the months where the only thing I wanted to eat was chocolate malts, and the fact that easily 90% of this baby girl was made of ice cream, the pregnancy was a hoot.


Birth had its funny moments, too. But mostly, it just felt miraculous. I had been oddly alienated from my body for years, and having her at home, in our bedroom, with screams and some blood and some extreme silliness, just gave me back myself. I remember holding her immediately after she was born and having the stunning realization: It was you the whole time -- you were who we have been waiting for.


Eric and I stayed up all night, just looking at the exquisite beauty who had showed up.

We should have known, then. We'd stay up all night for a lot of nights. This one wasn't what you'd call a sleeper, and we were still learning how to do this parenting thing.

But we made it through her babyhood and toddler years. I think she spent most of them tucked into a sling on my hip. And she stayed beautiful. And got funnier and funnier.


There were the "dress and leggings" years, and "Swan Lake" mania, and adjusting to siblings, and a couple of very cranky periods, but through it all, she's been fascinating.

Now that it feels like she's fully into "youth," she's even more interesting. I know, I know, how could it get any more interesting than Ballet All The Time, but it is. She's a boon companion on walks, watching movies, discussing books, playing Frisbee. She's a fierce friend to her few chosen compatriots, and a sometimes patient, sometimes irritated sibling. She's a fun Big Kid to her cousins, even though they try her patience. She loves her pets and keeps having interesting insights that she will sometimes share with me.


That radio silence is in itself a miracle, since she literally talked without stopping for a few years there. I thought it would never end.


But one thing this precious firstborn daughter did teach me is that it ends. . . it goes by fast, and maybe increasingly faster. The journey has been constantly interesting and it appears to be getting ever more fun.

So happy birthday, Sarafina.

Busy busy busy

According to this site, one anagram for my name is "Elation Fest."

In honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday, here's the one for whom that's accurate, a real Cat in a Hat.

New Beginnings

That's going to be the theme of our Mother-Daughter meeting tomorrow. Thing 1 and I figured that since we had to have a theme, and "Themes are Stupid" wasn't an acceptable one for this group since they're a bunch of overachievers, we'd get people to talk about the new things they were doing. She was amenable to any of my crazy schemes as long as a) she didn't have to talk about her feelings and b) there was birthday cheesecake involved. I'd planned to make it tonight, but it's too late now.

I offered to gel-draw some Feegles across the cake, but she said this group wasn't into them and so I should save my efforts for her actual birth day. I think practice wouldn't be a bad idea, but I don't have either the gel or the time, so we'll go naked cheesecake. Snort.

As she's growing older (almost 14! Where did the time go??) we've been enjoying watching movies together. Recently, we watched and talked about "The Matrix" trilogy. I walked into the living room the next day and saw this:


It's Fred, immediately post-freeing by Morpheus and the gang -- you can still see his ports from the "battery fields." She cracks me up. Thank goodness for Magz toys. 1000 uses, one small box.


The baby apricot tree has put out little buds, and I'm thrilled to think of a future with Blenheims in it. New beginnings, indeed.



Today's garden pickings. The new beginnings out there are, obviously, the seeds and seedlings taking the place of the pulled things. Poor broccoli raab. Once such a nice, bitter, rare green, and today perhaps I pulled all of the remaining stems of it and composted them. [Even my sister had started leaving bundles of it, lovingly picked for her to take home, in the refrigerator "accidentally."] There wasn't enough garlic in the world to render it edible any more.

So in place of some of it went a dozen cippolini onions, with a backup band of "True Siberian" kale and some tat soi. They've both done well and been delicious, so while we're waiting for the tomatoes and peppers to grow very big and the outdoors to warm enough for them, they can be the cool weather's last hurrah. Even though garden books remind you to reseed replacement plants every two weeks -- and sometimes I dutifully note that in my calendar -- I have yet to do it, so there are these vegetative boom and bust cycles. I overplant, forget to provide succession plantings, eat everything, and have bare soil until the next round. Maybe the garden can qualify for its own stimulus package. Real California real estate.

It's to my credit that there are no new knitting beginnings because as a result of not casting on for either another pair of Embossed Leaf Socks or a baby blanket for a friend, I'm only one sleeve away from finishing the stash alpaca raglan for my boy. Maybe he'll still fit it next week, and maybe it will be cool enough to wear a few times.

Of course I have three new courses beginning next week also, plus this session's three courses to pack up, gradewise, and the first meeting of the community fruit exchange. I had planned to make a batch of marmalade tonight for timing purposes -- if I'm going to lead a group, I should probably have trod the ground at least once. But I'm not going to. There's enough work to do and enough going on that I can let it go for tonight. And anyhow, if I'm not going to bake a cheesecake at ohmyhowlateitis PM, I'm certainly not going to break out my new jam pan and start shredding zest. Sometimes it's time for a new beginning, and sometimes it's time to go to bed.