Life's a Stitch

Last stop: memories created in Sonoma. Next stop: Mount Vernon,Washington, home of the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. 

I've posted my disenchantment with photography reduced to shots taken from  a phone, replacing the art and  science of photography in its true form.

Confession: I left my camera at home. As difficult as it is to admit, these are taken from my phone.

I had thought about running back to Costco to buy a little camera but resisted the urge. If I had, I would have missed those skies. 

It was a wonderful weekend, Easter with Dave and Blogless Marsha and reuniting with our Illinois family for the Tulip Festival. After visiting the fields we explored neighbouring town, LaConner, WA and then back to Mt. Vernon for lunch at the festival's salmon barbeque, hosted by the Kiwanis. They raise $80,000 yearly for community non-profits.

Knitting content: I was disappointed to see that after many years, and purchases might I add, that Hellen's yarn shop in Mt. Vernon had closed.

Audience Choice Award – Sonoma International Film Festival

Taking My Parents to Burning Man

I was plucked from reality and whisked away to Oz, aka the Sonoma International Film Festival where my son and his partner in filmmaking had their world premier. 

There were swag bags:

Fantastic accommodation:

Photo ops:

Press coverage during and after. Radio and TV  interviews. A fantastic photographer who gave me tips to feel great  about pictures at 60. Thank you, Dana Curley:

Great appreciation to our sponsor at the festival, Blaine, of WildFireWeb.

I bet there will be a few people getting hits on their sites wondering why they came from a knitting blog. The answer: I wasn't going to let the movie happen without a knitting scene. Can't wait to share it. 
 

AKA Taking My Mom To The Sonoma International Film Festival. This is a continuation of the story of my son's first feature length documentary Taking My Parents to Burning Man, of a mom and dad accompanying their child to the place of his dreams.
The world premier was at SIFF to a sold out crowd and standing ovation. Does a Mom's heart good, especially when, as he says, "she didn't think she was going to get me through high school."

1. C pointed out that our age difference gets smaller as we get older. M, perhaps this is one of the people from which you inherited the math genes? When he was  50 our age was 8% different. When he turns 100 there will only be a 4% difference. Someone has to think about these things. 

2. It can be called a birthday party, or as my cousin named it, “An Aging Event.” And one of my co-workers told me that after this one, you get to celebrate these aging events every five years. Oh goody.

3. In this family we all carry the creative gene. If you follow Lifesastitch you all know B’s talents in the entertainment world, C’s woodworking, and my knitting and watercolour painting. But consider the work of the women in the family who attended a silversmithing class during the Aging Event weekend:

M’s presentation of a gift from the three hatchlings, a semi-precious gemstone each placed with feathers inside a drained, sealed and painted egg, nested in copper wire:

The very special milestone gift, concept by my daughter M, design by C, and executed by a local jeweler:

E’s time and effort in putting together a video slide show that demonstrates I have influenced many people with my taste for decent red wine (thank you C), geocaching (thank you Greg), and knitting (thank you Mom). Oh, the reference to the banana foot, which I admit to be unique, is the fact that my foot took on a new shape after nine weeks in a cast with two bones that refused to knit, so to speak. Really, having a limited choice in shoes is, as Blogless Marsha and I say, a first world problem:

Thank you to the 60 people who contributed those 60 birthday wishes, which seriously brought tears to my 60-year-old eyes.

According to recent stats, in Canada on the average, you get eight of these. If you reside south of the 49th parallel, you'll average seven. I'm about to have my sixth. I'm talking about the big birthdays that end in zero. They occur every ten years, but over time seem to come faster and more furiously.

The impending event has given me pause to think. I don't feel markedly different than I did on the fifth occasion, but I've pinpointed the occasional feeling of sadness that overcomes me. On my 50th, most of life was behind me, as it is on my 60th. The difference, however, is that this time I'm doing it without a number of significant others. My mother, mother-in-law, two good friends, a dear cousin-in-law, my dog…I guess that's the challenge of getting on, surviving and growing from life's losses and looking forward to better times. 

There are different schools of thought on aging. Some say you die how you've lived, so to back up a step that probably means you age in the same style as you've lived to date. So if you tend toward the miserable and mean you'll probably stay that way right to the very end. I work with seniors and we see all kinds. Anna Quindlen, in her memoir Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, cites  a poll of 340,000 respondents that shows, after the age of 50, we get happier with age and that stress, anger and sadness all decline the older we get. I'm in on that theory.

So, on the Ides of March I'll be celebrating my 6th BIG Birthday that ends in a zero. I got a present from Scotiabank. You know, I've never been big on presents at birthday gatherings, but this year I'm going to acccept some to ease the pain. The bank reminded me that I am turning 60 (not that I needed reminding and oh, to see it in writing) and I can now enjoy my new senior life and the benefits of their seniors' discount. I'm hoping to enjoy much more than that $1 per month. And we started last night by taking a trip to the airport to pick up a surprise birthday "package:"

 

I know I've written this before, but all you people who have the opportunity to cross borders  from one country to another, should make sure you are covered by health insurance. Tripping one foot over the line, travelling from Canada into the US for example, could cost you big bucks. 

Our family is the voice of experience: my hiking/geocaching accident in Hawaii $289, C's heart attack in Washington $116,000, and now Mr. Bryant's "trip" in California $848 for 12 stitches. There were a couple more, but I was taught written lists get tedious after three items. Plus who needs to know the gory details?

The seventy plus dollar cost of one year of travel insurance for B was earned back after one stitch. You know the punchline: Emergency medical travel insurance – priceless.

A successful geocaching trip yesterday produced my 300th find:

Mr. Frog flashed his lights and croaked his congratulations. Really 300 is nothing. Many cachers rack up thousands, even tens of thousands.

There were amazing views above the temperature inversion produced fog:

 

 

Now that the holiday gifts are given I can post about the knitting. It's tough to keep a secret in blogland.  It must have looked like I had abandoned knitdom, but truth be told, most everything knit was a gift. This one was for my niece, a college freshman. All dorm kids need the huggy comfort of a soft scarf. Especially those way up in the Northeast.

Pattern: Wavy,  by Sarah Smith, available free on Knitty

Yarn: Heirloom Alpaca 8-ply

Needles: Who knows? I've got to start writing down the needle size prior to putting them back in the needle holder. My best guess is a US 6.

Thoughts: Great pattern, I give it my highest compliment: I would knit it again. It needed the growth from blocking, but I also liked the more bunched up unblocked version.