The day after....or....the day before

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2008

Everyone is stuffed and sitting around and not wanting to eat one more thing today. Or there are the few brave souls who are out Black Fridaying it, with the hardiest of them actually back home by now taking a nap. And then there are those very few souls who are just getting started on their Thanksgiving festivities.

Here goes.....

Happy Thanksgiving......

Today it is Chinese food and a glass of wine. Two of the many, many things I am very grateful for. Way down the list from my family but still on the list.







Preparations are well under way for the 35 people we are expecting on Saturday. Didn't even get out of our pajamas today, watched lots and lots of TV.








The last grocery shopping trip is tomorrow and the upstairs freezer has been emptied out in preparation.

The refrigerator is filling.

The table is filling.

Things are thawing.

And Liz is bagging her jewelry.

Knitting

Sunday, Nov 23, 2008

It seems so cold out so early this year. Maybe it is not but it seems like I have been out working in the yard much longer than this in the fall. I still have a lot to do so I guess I am just going to have to brave it and go out there one of these days.

The book is coming along OK. It continues to be very sad to read about this tortured family. Besides being victims of so many tragedies, the family dynamics are really sad all the way around.

We are getting ready for our big Thanksgiving bash next Saturday. The 16th year. Amazing. By this time I am usually vowing it will be the last as the stress piles up. I feel numb to it this year and that worries me just as much. I am organized, have a lot of the groceries, etc. but just seem pretty calm about all of it. I think a lot of that is because Maria is coming to clean the house on Tuesday. That was always so time consuming.

There are three bags of yarn sitting in the living room-three ongoing projects. #1 is my life sweater. It doesn't look like much of a project at the moment but it is always very much in my mind. #2 is for Christmas and #3 is Asa's sweater which is on hold until the Christmas project is done. So I would guess that the life sweater is also on hold until the Christmas project and Asa's sweater is done. I have to admit that I got my first issue of a knitting magazine this week and it has a sweater in it that would also look great out of the life sweater yarn. Oh, no.

Knitting

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2008

Knitting, my favorite past-time. I think I actually filled our survey the other day and said that. Oh yeah, it was a graduate student who was doing her doctoral dissertation on knitting and had asked for people to fill out a questionnaire.



This is yet another picture of my life sweater. This is the second time around. It is the turtle neck collar and the first shoulder saddle. Even though I used the exact same needles as I used on the first one, the turtle neck was just too big. It was perfect the first time but when I tried this one on, it was just too big and I couldn't live with it.





The second picture is my life sweater now. I am pretty determined to make this sweater and it will be perfect so I will be writing about it for a very long time.

After a couple of false starts and a consultation with Karen, I have started a sweater for yet-to-be-born Asa, who is due in February. It is a size one but looks big. Have the arms done and will start working on the body today. It is a cute sweater and seems to go quickly because you use double yarn. I know it looks like the life sweater yarn but it definitely isn't.

Ladies

Friday, November 14, 2008





All day today I have been thinking that it is Friday, the 13th. Nothing bad has happened, not even close. Hmmmmm. Wonder if it could be that it is all just a hoax or could it be that it is really Friday, the 14th?





Last night four of the women who live on my block were here for a Lady Knitters' Night, A Ladies' Knit, a Whatever Night.





This is the second time we have met. Last month it was pretty nonproductive as we just pretty much sat and chatted. Understand that most of us don't know each other very well at all, talking in the backyards, meeting on the street, etc. I had read a book a few years ago about a woman who owned a yarn shop and every Friday night the women met and knit and enjoyed the company. They always were working on a "community blanket", everyone working on it at some point during the night and when it was done they gave it to a woman who was battling breast cancer. This summer I heard about a woman who lives around the corner from all of us, whom none of us know, who is around our age, and who has been battling ovarian cancer for a year and a half with no family, no one around her, just alone. That seemed so sad. I kind of connected the two ideas and came up with this group. We have met twice now and I am thinking it is time to start the blanket at our next meeting. We will talk about it and everyone bring yarn and we will figure out a pattern and how to proceed from there.













I am probably about a third into this book and it is basically so sad. A family with so much money, so much talent, so much personality, so much everything and so dysfunctional. Rose Kennedy was totally wrapped up in her religion and her children but felt that you only touched a child to bathe them, never to show affection because that would make them weak. When her second oldest daughter, Kathleen, married her long love in a quick civil ceremoney during the war, Rose sent her a letter telling her that she was condemned to hell because she was not married in the Catholic Church. I don't know if they ever make amends but they haven't at this point in the book.

Joe Kennedy was extremely proud of his oldest son and was pretty close to the other kids but definitely more so the sons. He was a terrible womanizer but Rose and the daughters ignored it while the sons thought it was great and saw it as an example of how to live their lives.

Probably the most tragic part so far is the story of Rosemary, the mentally challenged daughter. She was born at a time when doctors absolutely demanded that the baby wait for them to deliver it and often that meant the nurse holding the woman's legs together until the doctor arrived. That is what happened in Rosemary's case. This results usually in the umbilical cord being compressed and little or no oxygen getting to the baby's brain for periods of time, resulting in all kinds of damage. The Kennedys chose to not recognize that Rosemary was challenged, putting her into regular schools, etc. Eventually she was privately tutored but as she got older she apparently had a more and more difficult time controlling her emotions, especially her temper. Joe Kennedy unilaterally decided that she was to have a lobotomy to the absolute disagreement of his wife and all of his children. Rosemary was left with no emotion, nothing, no personality, nothing. The family placed her in a home with nuns and were never allowed to speak of her again.

The same thing happened when Joe Jr. was shot down during WWII. Once they were initially told of it, the siblings and parents never spoke of it again and never cried, except in private.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2008

There is a place when you are driving northwest towards Niagara Falls on Route 17, that you pass through PA for short distance. Just before you come to that point you come upon a beautiful valley that opens up in front of you-suddenly, out of nowhere. It was exquisite this trip with all of the foliage in their autumn finery. You are only at a place where you can see it for about two minutes or so but it is breathtaking for those two minutes. I drove through there on a return trip from MI a few years ago and it was early morning. It was just as breathtaking as it was early morning, the sun was coming up and there was fog in a lot of the nooks and crannies of the mosaic in front of me.

It is one of those views that you know you just cannot capture with a camera. Although you can take wonderful pictures with wide angles, etc. there are just some scenes that you cannot capture-- the ahhhhhh moment. I felt that way in Death Valley and I feel that way in this spot in northwestern New York.

What is with this anyway? Cross the Canadian border and the speed limit becomes 100. Of course is it kph as opposed to mph and the conversion is simple-miles =6/10 of kilometers, hence 100 kph = 60 mph. But then you wake up in the morning and it is 11 degrees. And you get silly $1 nd $2 coins. Why can’t it all be the same? I don’t even care what it is, just make it all the same.

Speaking of crossing into Canada, I was all prepared for the usual long, long wait. But there I was at the Niagara Falls crossing, the only car at any of the booths. It was so empty. Border Person: Where do you live? MM: Bronx, NY. BP: Where are you going? MM: Mayville, MI. BP: Do you have anything in the car that you shouldn’t have? MM: No. BP: OK, go ahead. Crossing from Canada into MI: BP: Where are you going? MM: Mayville, MI. Where do you live? MM: Bronx, NY. BP: Did you stay in Canada last night? MM: Yes, in St.Catharine’s. BP: Show me some ID. MM handed over passport. BP looked at it, handed it back and said, “OK. Enjoy your day.” Wow. Homeland Security at its finest.

Amazing

Monday, November 10, 2008

Talk about a pivotal moment. Much has been made about Americans electing their first non-white president. Many say that we can be proud because we did not vote based on race. but that probably isn't entirely true. I am sure that Barack got votes and did not get votes-a significant number in each category-based on race. I think we are kidding ourselves if we think that this settles the race issues that so divide this country. Actually, the world. Was it the president of Italy who said that our president-elect looks "well tanned"?????

It did not take very long for the likes of Rush Limbaugh to write even more hateful things than they wrote during the campaign.

I, for one, am delighted to have a young man and his young family in the White House. An intelligent man, a calm man, a man who seems to surround himself with even more intelligent and more experienced men and women. The only negative I can see is that I don't understand why any person would be crazy enough to want this job at this time.

A friend of mine from Canada who is very well read about American politics, says that he reads often how Barack is usually the smartest person in the room. I would imagine that is true as long as Michelle isn't in the same room. Then it would be a toss-up.