Life's a Stitch

Police definition: Your property is taken without your permission.

Yup, that fits. Let me back up, what a week it's been. Went to work Monday, feeling like it was a Monday after a long party on Saturday night, just a wee tad tired (it was the after party for the Vancouver premier of Taking My Parents to Burning Man, two more sold out audiences).

Back to Monday. At lunch time I could hardly make it  down to the food court to eat – shivering, achy body and whomping headache came on like a lead balloon. Let the office know I would be heading home. Took my temp and confirmed the ikky feelings were due to fever. Long story short: antibiotics, right neck gland reminiscent of mumps (is one sided called a mump?), sinus infection, ordered to stay at home until the fever is gone for 24 hours. Not there yet. 

Phone rings this morning"

"Hello, this is your neighbour and board member from your condo association in California. We were inspecting your roof for damaged tiles and noticed your air conditioning unit was gone."

Apparently people remove air conditioning units to recover $70 worth of copper. It's a speedy crime and they work on volume. 

The remedy so far includes: five unsuccessfully answered calls to the insurance company, one to the police who require a property inspection to assure there hasn't been a break in. Call back to the neighbour, whom we have never met. He offered to go over and check and that's where we are. Waiting. Waiting. I am going to assume no news is good news.

Lifesastitch and Blogless Marsha have knit across the Atlantic for the third time:

This time we added in a calm as a lake English Channel and glassy North Sea. All the way from Miami to Copenhagen there was daily knitting. I kept mine simple on the hands – 100% knit stitch, none of those painful k3tog. And we weren't alone:

On the ten sea days, this group from at least seven countries, met each morning for what we called our "knitting adult day care sessions." It kept us out of trouble as there are worse places to be on a cruise ship – the blazingly bright sun deck, casino, bars and gift shops, and the never-ending opportunities for food.

There has been a dearth of knitting on this knitting blog, I admit it. Granted, there has been a fair amount of recent excitement in our lives, demonstrated by recent posts, but that's not the reason. Rest assured that my knitting, limping along with these prematurely arthritic wrists, has accompanied me on those recent trips. The truth is, however, there'll only be slow knitting until I have an appointment at Vancouver's hand clinic referred after x-rays, a round of prednisone, rest and ice. 

In the spirit of our family 's usual mayhem, Mr. C is recovering from a broken rib. His is a more dramatic story. Once upon a time, a 63 year old guy was climbing down from his adult son's loft bed and missed the foothold. 

The end.

I have no  doubt, though, that we'll live happily ever after. In the mean time Lifesastitch will follow doctor's orders and take a little rest. I'll be back in early June.

 

This movie of ours has lead to one surprise after another. I had the privilege of being interviewed on radio by Rudy Maxa.
You can listen to the podcast here, starting around minute 23.

Another audience Choice Award: Best Documentary –  Newport Beach Film Festival

Imagine you have a kid, who in high school, went from honour roll to a 52 average in 18 months flat. All that parental worry until a year and a half prior to graduation, he discovers his passion, filmmaking. Goes on to four years in a degree program (notice I didn't say to get his degree in filmmaking because he is three credits short) and combines that passion with another talented classmate to bring together his dream of a movie: Taking My Parents to Burning Man.

So here we are, revelling in these two boys' success at the start of their career. Audience Choice Awards for Best Documentary at the Newport Beach Film Festival and the Sonoma International Film Festival.

I especially appreciated  this review.

We're just an average family having a fairytale experience.  How good is this?

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.