tied up ?

This morning I journeyed from the lovely San Juan islands to Tacoma where the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat starts tomorrow.

This sign hung on my door in place of the more typical do not disturb type sign.

While it’s true that I brought some yarn with me. And, in fact, I just may have acquired some yarn between the time I left home and the time I arrived here. But… what exactly do they expect to happen in this room? Inquiring minds want to know.

Tomorrow I am taking a class from Nancy Bush: Baltic Braids and Babbles. It sounds really fun. And Nancy Bush is sort of one of my knitting heroes so I’m totally geeked out that I’m going to get to meet her. Hopefully I won’t embarrass myself too much,

I have seen the Yarn Harlot, but I was too busy swapping iPhone apps with her and with Blue Moon’s Depraved Dyer to kinnear her. I will keep trying.

afternoon view

I really thought that the week was going to calm down a little bit.

That was before #1 Son’s computer started having what we in the vaguely techie business like to call issues. When in need, #1 Son always calls Mom’s Tech Support. This particular incident ended up requiring a complete wipe of the hard drive and reinstall of XP, and there were driver issues and… I won’t bore you with the details. But it took time.

And then there was the little incident where the nice officer on the lovely motorcycle stopped me as I was on my way home from dropping the fur kids off at the Cat B&B. He informed me that I’d just been doing 30 in a school zone. I’m usually very, very careful about that. In my defense, it was a high school that sits way back from the main street. It was the middle of the morning and no children were anywhere to be seen. And I admit to a bit of distraction as I tried to figure out how to cram 3 days of activities into about 8 hours.

I banged my head against my fortunately knit cozy clad steering wheel while the nice officer wrote out a ticket.

And then I ended up sort of needing a second root canal. The good news is that now the pain is all gone. But it took time. Actually, more time than usual.

I have a very tiny mouth. (No comments from you out there in the peanut gallery.) But it turns out that I have deep roots and a lot of nerve. So it takes a bit of doing to make sure I don’t feel anything while the whole root canal procedure is being performed. And that takes time. But with that finally accomplished, Dr. P was happily reaming out my tooth, and I was happily ignoring the whole thing as I lay there with what feels like a balloon pressed against my mouth and drool running down my chin, when the light went out.

You know. That light that the dentist shines in your face so that the inside of your mouth is lit up? That light. It went out. The. Light. Went. Out.

After a stunned silence, a mad flurry of activity ensued as everyone in the office tried to change the light bulb. (I just know there’s a really good joke in there.) It turns out that those light thingies are quite complicated mechanisms and you have to practically take the whole thing apart just to change this itsy bitsy light bulb. And the person in the office who used to change all of the light bulbs because she just loooooved doing it so much had retired the month before. And nobody was really sure of the best approach.

It was suggested that I be moved to the next room. But the room wasn’t ready and it was announced that in that room the brain wouldn’t boot up. I have no idea what that meant. But I really had no desire to be in a room where the brain wouldn’t boot while my mouth was under construction.

As the mad flurry whirled around, Dr. P (love this man) calmly continued with his business, mostly by feel and with the help of a little hand held fiber optic spot light. I lay in the chair, drool dripping from my chin and laughing at the absurdity. Because, really, what else could I do?

Eventually Dr. P reached the point in the whole operation where more light became necessary. What are you doing? he asked the light bulb changers.

It’s difficult to do and you have to use this spreader and it’s hard to get it in the right place. was the reply, in a tone that said you obviously have no idea how to do this or you would understand.

Dr. P stood up. Give me the screwdriver. And he started in trying to take the thing apart.

I have been taking things apart and putting them back together since I could hold a screwdriver, and I desperately wanted to get up and get in on the fun. But, all things considered, I decided it was safer to stay where I was and watch from the sidelines. Eventually the old bulb was removed, the new bulb was inserted and the light fixture was returned to a fairly usable state. Dr. P finished up his business, my tooth was reconstructed in a temporary sort of way, drool was wiped off my chin and I was off back to the races.

I ran home, threw a few more driver disks at #1 Son, threw a load of laundry in the washer, and headed out the door to Westside Wednesday Sip ‘N’ Stitch because I really felt that, all things considered, I deserved at least a short bit of knitting with my peeps. I had decided that I would just plead guilty to the traffic ticket (remember the ticket? – that was before the root canal) and make it go away. So, carefully following instructions, I signed the ticket, wrote out a check, tucked both inside an envelope addressed to the correct location. And just as I stuffed it into the slot in the mail box and it left my grasp never to be recovered, I realized that I’d sort of forgotten to put a stamp on it.

Yeah. It was just that kind of week.

But today is ever so much better. The pic is of the view out my back door yesterday afternoon. I am at Cat Bordhi’s annual visionary retreat, where I am surrounded by amazing people in this gorgeous setting and my creative juices are flowing. And I may even get some work done on the book. But blogging, I’m afraid, may be sporadic for the next few days. I could tell you all about the retreat and who’s here and all, but then I’d have to kill you or something because it’s all a deep, dark secret and very mysterious and blah, blah, blah. (It’s actually a lot of hard work.) But I will try to blog more from Madrona, where I will attempt to Kennear all kinds of famous people — maybe even the Yarn Harlot!

For the month of February, a number of bloggers are participating in a campaign to raise $5,000 for Oregon Food Bank. Please consider donating by clicking on the picture — please include the words Blog for Food in the tribute section so that the effectiveness of this campaign can be tracked.

Oregon’s unemployment rate has risen above 9% – nearly 2% above the national average – after remaining stable at 5.5% through the first half of 2008. In December alone, 10,000 jobs were lost in Oregon, leading to the highest one-month jump in unemployment ever recorded here. The state is facing job cuts from companies such as Boeing, Intel, Xerox, Daimler Trucks, Harry & David, Precision Castparts and Oregon Health Sciences Univeristy, among others. This list does not include small employers who have laid off workers or gone out of business due to the downturn. Construction, for example, has lost 4,500 jobs in the last year – nearly double what was expected.

The rise in unemployment means a corresponding rise in the need for assistance such as food stamps. In October, requests to the Oregon Department of Human Services for Temporary Assistance to Needy Families increased by 16 percent over the previous October, while food stamp applications rose by 13 percent. But the rise in unemployment also means a corresponding decrease in the tax revenue collected by the state. A severe budget shortage may soon begin to affect core services.

I know all of the statistics can be dry and dull. But this is becoming very serious and scary.

The Oregon Food Bank is the hub of a network of food banks that service all of Oregon and Clark County in Washington. OFB collect the food from farmers, retailers, individuals and government sources and redistributes it to 20 regional food banks, who in turn distribute the food to local food banks, soup kitchens, etc. For every dollar that is donated, OFB can collect and distribute 5 lbs of food. Even a tiny donation makes a huge difference.

Please consider helping out with a donation of any size if you are able. Or drop a can of food or two by your local food bank. If you are not able to do either, please consider donating your time as a volunteer to OFB (if you are in Portland) or to a local food bank, soup kitchen or shelter where ever you are located. With knitters in on this campaign, I know that $5,000 will be reached!

This post will remain sticky at the top for the month of February.

Thanks for listening, and thanks for helping.

my how we've changed

What happens when school’s out?

Classmates go separate ways – to college, to marriage, to work, to ??? We become busy, wrapped up in what we are doing. We make new friends and new connections; ones that we now have more in common with. The things that were so important to us then — Mrs. Wood’s English class and the cute guy on the football team and who is going to the prom and with whom — fade into the universal background noise and are lost.

Life takes over and carries us along on its inexorable tide and slowly we forget.

If we’re lucky, there are regular reunions that help us reconnect with those long-ago BFFs that are now only names and pictures in a yearbook. I’m not so lucky. My High School class has only had a couple of reunions – one I was not able to attend and one that I found out about only after it was over. And I’m not all that good about keeping in touch with people. I sort of suck at it. My intentions are good, but you know what they say about good intentions, eh, gentle reader? I get busy… and then I realize it’s been weeks and months and sometimes years…

So I was surprised when, just before Christmas, I got a voice mail from my brother saying that someone I went to grade school with was trying to get in touch with me and here was his number.

I went to an 8-year grade school. There were 50 kids in my class. While there were a few kids who left or moved away during those 8 years, and a few new kids who joined, for the most part it was the same 50 of us together in one room for 8 long years. But only a couple of them went to my high school, and so I hadn’t seen many of them for years and years and years – way more years than I wanted to admit.

I’m a curious sort. So after thinking about it for awhile, I picked up the phone and called Carl and told him who I was. And it turned out that Carl and Ralph and some of the other old cronies were drinking coffee together one day and got to reminiscing about old times and realized that 2009 is the (drum roll please) 40th anniversary of our graduation from 8th grade. (yes, I’m old. deal with it.) They’d managed to track down all but a few of us, and was I interested in getting together?

Was I!!!!!

Carl added me to the “found” list and forwarded me a spreadsheet of names that I hadn’t heard for… a long time. I called my cousin who was in the same class as I and got her on the list. And last Sunday I joined a planning teleconference with several people who don’t sound much like I remember, and probably don’t look much like I remember, either. But nobody had talked to my long ago BFF, Ann. We were thick as thieves for awhile there, and I thought we would be forever. All that teenage drama, you know – boyfriends and dances and first jobs and who and where and why and what… But… life happens and gets in the way. By the time we’d been out of high school for four or five years, we’d both moved to other towns and just sort of drifted apart. There was an old contact number on the spreadsheet, but nobody knew if it was still good.

So last night I picked up my phone and dialed the old number, and Ann answered.

I can’t begin to express how good it was to hear her voice, and catch up a little on how she is and where she’s been and so on. We might not be able to hook up at the reunion being planned, but we will find a way to hook up because we need to get together and talk about all that stuff way long ago… Mrs. Wood’s English class an that cute guy. And bring each other up to date, and start anew. And keep in touch this time.

That’s me, by the way, from my 8th grade class picture. The picture had no names on it, so I wrote the names below the faces, just in case I forgot (and, it turns out, in some cases, go figure, I had). I’d even helpfully labeled myself. I wonder how long I fussed with my hair to get it that smooth. I remember ironing it sometimes, and setting it on soup cans in a vain attempt at getting it straight. I’m guessing this was soup cans, since it has a little flip at the bottom. 40 years later, I’ve finally given up.

Thank you, for your kind comments on my secret projects. Both were a lot of fun to knit. I’ll have knitting content next time, maybe. But thanks for indulging this little foray into the past.

unburied Barry Bear

I escaped on Saturday.

I can’t begin to tell you how good it felt just to do normal things like buy groceries. But my first stop was to one of the LYS, where Cindy happened to be working. I gave her a big hug! It was so good – so good, gentle reader, to be back amongst my peeps. And I got to show Cindy my finished secret project, and she agreed that it’s pretty kick-ass. I bought some Addi Turbos in celebration.

Well, and because I really needed some shorter circs for the new secret project that I’m working. I knew I wouldn’t finish it by Christmas. But New Years? I might make it if I knit really a lot between now and then. And Christmas, you know, is coming a little late this year since everything was put on hold by the snow.

Since I have no knitting pictures I can show you, I’m giving you one last picture of Barry The Berry Bear, finally uncovered from his long winter nap. I took this on Saturday, when there was still a bit of stubborn ice and snow left to melt. It’s all gone now. The ruler is for size comparison. It’s 16″ long. In the end, the snow completely covered Barry. Not even the tip of his paw showed through. I don’t have a picture of that because, well… all you could see was snow. But, I would guess that the chez PI unofficial snow depth was right around 18″.

That’s a lot of snow.

I haven’t seen that much snow since I left SE Idaho. Although Bro, who is in SE Idaho for Christmas along with SIL and amazing niece Z, assures me that they do have a bit more snow there.

They can keep it.

P.S. The robin is still guarding the Asian pear tree.

P.P.S. I made a slight change to the blog look. There are little pictures for commenters now. If you have a gravatar already, it will use it. If not, it will assign you a little face. It uses your email address in some sort of hash routine to come up with one that is uniquely yours. Comment and see what you get. The assigned pictures will only show up in the comments list under the post, but not in the sidebar. Your own gravatar will show up both places. I think the little pics are cute, but we all know I’m easily amused. Let me know what you think!

feisty robin

A very happy holidy to you, gentle reader! I hope that you are warm and safe and have your loved ones tucked in around you. I wish you peace and joy and yarny goodness.

I wanted to share with you something that has greatly entertained me over the last week or so. (I’m snowed in. I’m easily entertained, trust me.)

Do you see the little robin perched on my neighbor’s back fence? This little guy discovered the Asian pear tree when the snow first started falling. Having found what must seem like a 5-start robin restaurant, he has been guarding it from all comers, and apparently even sleeping next to it. I have watched him stand off a whole little flock of robins and other birds that had designs on his tree. At one point I heard a loud chatter and scolding and peaked out the back door to see a very surprised looking falcon perched on the fence post. I doubt that the falcon wanted Asia pears, but I’m surprised he didn’t take the robin.

I love this little guy’s feistiness and attitude. It will be interesting to see if he sticks around once the snow thaws – which should be soon!