Life's a Stitch

It hit me why I’m not feeling so cheery this Easter. It’s the first year that there will only be three of us home for the holiday. That’s why I’m feeling all sentimental. I’ll miss hearing the sound of cupboards and appliance doors squeaking open and thwacking shut in search of Easter baskets. I think these semi-adult kids still take great pleasure in the search.

I’ll miss the group laugh during the yearly retelling of our story about the time we came home from church to find a squirrel perched on the fence eating the last of our Easter hunt treats. The squirrels cleverly had their own hunt while we were out of the house. Can’t you just picture it? "Hey, hey, Skippy, they’re gone, get moving, it’s a gold mine." We dug up the odd buried foil wrapped chocolate egg for several years after.

I’ll especially miss all three kids turning to smile at me in church when our talented organist revs up for my favourite rendition of Jesus Christ is Risen Today. Bad Catholic that I am, the pleasure I derive from that moment in a church I don’t frequent nearly enough, is almost sinful.

Throw in a little anniversary anxiety, a year since Chuck’s Easter week heart attack, and the complexities that has added to our life, and that explains everything.

Mr. almost-all grown-up, soon to be seventeen, has been asking me to knit him a Piet. Meet the Easter Piet, who will be hiding in our house, in a nest of plastic grass, Purdy’s chocolate and sugar free gum, waiting to be discovered by a certain six foot tall little boy.

There has been a thread winding its way though the blogs where women talk of their husband’s disdain for one of her outfits. In her January 12th post, Super Eggplant had the dress her guy described as appropriate for a polygamist’s wife. My dear Chuck hates my LL Bean sundresses, which he claims fit me like a sack. I told him I will put them away for my next husband. Now Lynne‘s man is in on the act. Her kimono style top was described by him only as "interesting." I empathetically commented on her blog and she wrote to me saying the only outfit a man truly understands is naked. Can you imagine all the google hits I’m going to get with the words man and naked in the same sentence?

That reminded me of a story that gives credence to her theory. I had a friend who tried on a leather skirt. She asked her husband his opinion. He said, "It doesn’t matter. It’s not going to stay on that long."

On to knitting. Meet my Print O’ the Wave, a free pattern from Eunny, in Seasilk in the ivory colourway. This is my current portable project as opposed to Marina, which requires more than one knitting bag and is my stay at home project.

I ordered the yarn on line. All I can figure is that I got the last two skeins. I know that hand dyed yarn has inconsistencies, but why else would they send two completely different shades of the same yarn? This photo doesn’t really illustrate how little they have in common. I was initially concerned as the darker one looked like the ivory one, having survived a diet coke spill. If I wanted that colour I could have handled a spill all on my own. Now that I’ve alternated the skeins, the difference gives it a fair bit of depth and I’m actually appreciating it.

This project would make a lovely wedding shawl, but with no wedding plans this year, thank goodness, I told Chuck I’d wear it for our 25 anniversary in December. With clothes on underneath, of course.

Another lesson in "when spell check doesn’t work." I am employed in the field of nonprofit social services. A newer to the field co-worker came into my office and asked me which is the correct term – nonprofit or not-for-profit. I typed in both to see which would look better in her grant application and accidentally came up with a new fund raising idea "pot-for-profit." Don’t ask me where that came from the "p" is nowhere near the "n" on the keyboard.

Must have been that Eric Clapton concert again. I was talking to another co-worker who was at the same event. The people sitting next to her were a couple with their 10 or 11 year old son. The entire concert, the mom and dad were smoking pot. The times, they are a changing. Wrong show. I was at that one, too and the air was thick with purple haze. It was very interesting, the average age at the Clapton concert was over 50.

Here is my completed Irish Hiking Scarf, the one that was almost abducted while we attended the concert. It’s made with Elsebeth Lavold Angora in Aubergine. The longer you fiddle with this yarn, the softer it gets. An aran weight, it’s a quick knit. Elann has it reasonably priced and I bought enough for a sweater. I’m looking for a shawl collared cable design like this one at Patternworks, but they charge $9 to mail to Canada. I’ve got plenty of time, I still have to finish Marina. I’m now onto the sleeves so it shouldn’t be too many more years.

Here’s the set up:

One day, eight years ago, we moved into our house. To save a bundle of money we gutted the interior of a tear down and started over. After numerous delays we moved in – no kitchen, no carpet, one usable bathroom. It was a day from hell, working for a challenging boss, and our kids’ school principal died. We were distracted. Those are the reasons we forgot to go to the Eric Clapton concert for which we had tickets for goodness knows how long.

After that sad story you can understand the importance of attending Clapton this past Friday night. I nearly mortgaged the house to buy tickets for Bryant and Chuck. It was their Christmas gift. So pardon my annoyance over the couple seated, oh maybe 18 inches, in front of us. He – 60ish, a beer guzzling, big bellied balding guy. She – late 50’s, unnaturally dyed jet black hair and fire engine red, nicely manicured, fingernails, with an oh-so-small chip on the left index finger. How did I know there was a chip? Because her hand spent the entire concert rubbing his balding bean like a puppy’s belly, not quite in time to the music, less than a foot and a half from my eyes. On the more lively pieces she vigorously scratched behind his ears. He leaned into her hand just like Gracee does, when in my imagination, her doggy voice is saying "more, more, more." Was it a figment of my disgust, or was there a drift of dandruff accumulating on my knees?

I must be turning into a crotchety old witch, I thought. I looked at Chuck. He reassuringly whispered to me, "The only thing more obnoxious than her rubbing his head like that is the fact that he’s letting her do it. Oh, I get it," surmised my groom, "I bet their dog died and he won’t let her get another one." Being polite half Canadians, we didn’t say a darned thing, so it’s our own fault.  When, suffering from scratching fatigue, however, she rested her elbow on my knee, and I did abruptly move away.

For the most part Eric Clapton and particularly his pianist, Chris Stainton, were beyond amazing and distracted us from the Incredible Itchies. It was a pleasure attending a concert of historic proportions with a truly appreciative 16-year-old. Bryant makes fun of me when I take photos of my knitting and he fully expected me too pull out a project mid-performance. "Here is my knitting at an Eric Clapton concert," he would mock me, in a voice that’s supposedly mine, sounding like nails on a chalk board. No, I didn’t embarrass him that way and that’s why my knitting bag was ransacked, when during the course of the evening, someone broke into our car.

So excuse this witch, who had to drown her sorrows this weekend, with the purchase of some Schaefer Anne yarn. Heh, heh, heh (that would be witchy laughter). 

Just a quick post. This has been a hellish week at work.

I was talking to a co-worker who had recently signed up for Weight Watchers with her husband. At the first meeting he observed "Wow, this is a great place to meet motivated women." We chuckled at his idea for a pre-emptive strike. They’re motivated and you know they’ll look even better in a couple of months. Scary, I actually hired this guy once many years ago. Really, he is a very decent man who merely identified an opportunity. I can see him recruiting his single pals for the next meeting.

On the size front I think my head is disproportionately small compared to my middle parts, so it doesn’t take much yarn to make a hat. This is a beret made from Twilley’s Freedom Spirit, really lovely 100% wool yarn from England. I haven’t been able to find a Canadian source:

Thank you for all your birthday wishes, It was quiet here. I doubt the men in my house believed I needed spoiling after my recent dream trip. I took care of myself, though, and booked a mini spa appointment as I am in serious withdrawal. Believe me, I’m not looking for sympathy.

Back in Slovakia, this fountain dispensed what was nicknamed "the cure." This was nothing like the Bobbsey Twins’ in Volcano Land, their trip to Hawaii, where they imbibed in pineapple juice from a drinking fountain. People come from all over to drink this hot, vile smelling liquid, produced naturally from underground sulphuric springs that you could smell from a mile away. So committed to the cure are the Slovaks, they haul it off in bottles. I even saw someone feeding it to a baby. It’s supposed to cure whatever ails you and the list of ailments is a page long.

Of our threesome, I was the only soul brave enough to give it a go, and once was definitely enough. From my experience I think the point of the cure is the belch. The stinky sulphuric belch. I can only imagine what might happen if you stifled it. E e-mailed me recently and said she was peeling hard boiled eggs and the smell was making her feel nostalgic.

There was a little steamy pond nearby where fish and turtles lived in the stuff. Frankly I don’t know how they survived. It seemed like a life of slow poaching; a natural source of Bouillabaisse. They looked happy enough.

One of the aspects of the high mineral content in the water was that it made you extremely buoyant. It was easy to float in the mineral pools. It’s amazing how perky we all became, like we were wearing invisible WonderBras. As E and I sat on the underwater bench along the side of mirror pool with our various floaty bits, we heard men’s voices on the other side of the wall and imagined what was floating over there. No one said we had to behave like grownups the entire time we were on this trip. Besides, being related by marriage means we missed out on sharing those all important girlhood giggles, and we seemed determined to make up for lost time.

This is another scarf completed in Slovakia, details a few posts back:

Beware the Ides of March. The 15th of March is an auspicious day in history. In the year 44BC Julius Caesar was stabbed to death in the senate by conspiritors led by Brutus and Longinus. In 1906, the Rolls Royce was introduced.The Godfather opened on March 15th, 1972. And in 1954 this blogger was born and thus far, has never been at a loss for words. If you want to know what happened in history on your birthday go to "This day in History."

Since this is about my birthday, how about some cake – taken in Vienna at the world famous Demel’s. Described in the Washington Post: Its baroque decor, thick with chandeliers and ornate murals of frolicking water nymphs, can get a bit unctuous. And the dour waitresses in their stern black habits could well be mistaken for an order of nuns devoted to disciplining naughty hedonists. But the dazzling spectacle of glass cabinets teaming with chocolate, trays heaped with cookies and biscuits, and tier upon tier of pastries of every conceivable shape, color and content, makes Demel’s a shrine to sweet-toothed devotees. Every word is the truth, I think "dour" must have been in the servers’ job description. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, but their goulash soup was exquisite.

I’m sure some of you could use a break from the Slovakia coverage, besides I’m dying to show off Eyeleen’s Herringbone Rib scarf, cleverly wrapped around a pineapple. Who would have thought… great presentation. The scarf is drop dead gorgeous if you ask me, of course I’m biased. She did six pattern repeats, using a lighter weight yarn, details on her blog Knitting by Eye.

I’m still getting steady requests for the pattern, still available for the price of a comment. Photos of the finished product are greatly appreciated and will be added to the gallery on my sidebar.

Another requirement for a decent vacation is a good book. I brought along "Eat, Pray and Love" an autobiographical account of one woman’s year of transformation; an excellent read by Elizabeth Gilbert. In one chapter she talks about declaring a major for your life. This trip I declared eating and knitting my majors with a minor in physical therapy. Same studies as at home, but at a much better campus.

It was also a good opportunity for people watching. We dubbed people with characteristic names. There was Gandalf, the tall bearded man who paraded around in his long dark hooded bathrobe. And the Snow Queens, two elegant German women, probably sisters, with vanilla white soft serve hair piled on top of their heads. When they smiled, it melted all images of iciness. I wondered what names they would have given us. Probably three of the seven dwarves would have fit – E was Sleepy, L was the older wise Doc and I was Happy as I assume my laugh probably attracted a few glances. As a group we were all Dopey, mainly due to the language differences.

One day, while in the heart shaped swimming pool (did I mention that the fried eggs at breakfast were also heart shaped?), we heard the familiar rhythm of American English. We met Shannon and Ed, a couple who were finishing a 15 month stint of work in Piestany and were enjoying Valentine’s weekend at the spa hotel. They had had the opportunity to work in several countries and Shannon told us "I can point in 120 different languages." Lovely Shannon, also a knitter, contributed to the success of our trip. On our day off (Did you get that? A day off from spa treatments? E, L and I had a saying to cover such indulgences, "Suffer B__ch," I only abbreviate it to avoid weird Google searches). Oh yes, Shannon. She had a car and took us off campus to visit two nearby towns. Just like in college, sometimes you were able to hook up with a ride to broaden your horizons. Thank you, Shannon.

The surrounding geography consisted of gentle rolling hills with low mountains in the background. You’d be riding along and poof! There would be a rocky cliff, rising right off the road, with a castle on top.Castles that imprisoned interesting people like "the Blood Queen," who killed all the virgins for some seemingly good reason that only she understood:

Enough. I’ve made up for my lack of posts with length of post. You know how it is when you come back from vacation. The world and work and such, keep going and producing tasks for you in your absence. I’ve had to play serious catch up. And to keep this as a knitting blog I give you some knitting content. Besides the Lead or Follow Scarf, I also started an Irish Hiking Scarf in Elsebeth Lavold angora and a Vintage Velvet Scarf, from Scarf Style, with my two remaining clearance Annie Blatt kits:

If you’ve had high school age kids in recent years, you might remember their foreign language teacher’s warning about using Google Translate to complete assignments. One afternoon we were greeted by the hotel’s new fire warning system:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, the technic defect was cared here. You shall must leave the building in peace, please. Your state of mind to service personnel instructions. The personal will erode thee off the building."

The "personal" in the office probably heard our peals of laughter from our 4th floor room. We had images of reluctant guests being scraped off the side of the building. Being helpful little knitters (as pictured on the left), we very respectfully offered a more effective interpretation.

Google translate was probably used for the room service menu as well, which offered "sandwich with chicken noodles, peanut butter and sweet chili sauce." "Cheese Mouse (mousse)" was offered in the dining room one night.

This part of Slovakia receives very few English speaking visitors and the general population is so appreciative of tourists and try really hard to communicate. It turns out the hotel had a fluent English speaking staff in their guest relations department, but they must have been off the day they implemented the fire evacuation system.

Now my lack of language ability causes its own set of issues. I ended up in the men’s section, awaiting my skinny dip in the mud pool. I wondered why the three gentlemen all had nervous coughs in my presence. When the time came to parade to the pool I was promptly ushered to the women’s side by an anxious attendant. 

E, L and I spoke English at our assigned dining table. We asked the maitre’d to let us know if we were being too loud in our enthusiastic conversation. There was a Danish man seated just out of earshot from our table. Having been informed that L was from Denmark, observing our exuberance, he asked her in Danish "Just what language are you three speaking so much in?"

But my favourite language situation happened when E went for a neck and upper back massage and was greeted by the command " Take off top of your body, please."