Hurricane Sweater

I tell ya, this hurricane thing has been pretty crazy. Having grown up in California, I had no idea what to expect. On Monday--the day the fun was due to begin--I sat at the dog park giving Camper a pre-storm run as another friendly dog owner explained to me how in Florida, coconuts can literally fly off the trees and kill you during a hurricane! He advised me to get some nonperishable goods and stay inside. While we don't have coconuts here in Brooklyn, I decided we should listen to him.

The day went like this: rainy rainy rainy, wiiiindy, rainy. Then really fucking windy! Camper and I stood at the back door and watched our puny little fruit trees flop in the wind. (In fact, below is a really boring video I took of the yard which is only good for the very end when Camper growls at the wind.)

For the rest of the day, I ate all of the nonperishable food first, like I wasn't supposed to, and only on day three of not being able to go back to work have I started in on the lettuce and fruit. Our power stayed on. Our internet worked. My phone stopped being able to make or receive calls (much to my mother's dismay). I feverishly searched the internet for updates on what the hell was happening out there in Manhattan and beyond. I let Camper out now and then and was a thrilled to feel the wind pushing up against the glass door (you really had to put your shoulder into it if a big gust was blowing). Four stacked lawn chairs blew across our yard, and our big green party bucket (you know, the things you fill with ice and put your beers in) got crushed. RIP party bucket.

We fared pretty well. Others we know did not (and seeing as a lot of people still don't have power and lost absolutely irreplaceable belongings, they're still not doing well...and my heart goes out to them and my shower is open to them).

But if there was one bit of good news this week, it's that I made some major progress on Robb's sweater. That's right, it turns out that hurricanes provide the perfect conditions for marathon knitting. When I wasn't shoveling my face with cheese-laden snack foods, I was working row after row of Stockinette. What I'm holding in the photo above is not, in fact, knitted long johns, but the completed front and back of a cardigan!

(So you can understand it better, I have tried it on for you as it will eventually be worn. And from the back. Note that it will have arms and will not look like a hippie cape, as it does here.)

We're still a long way off from being done, but finishing the back put the wind in my sails. As many of you know, it's been nearly two years since I started this sweater--and I'm still not convinced that it will fit Robb, nor am I convinced it will look good on him--but progress is progress. The sweater is currently being blocked on my kitchen floor, pinned down to a bath towel, and when Robb gets home from work, it's try-on time! And then possible sewing up the sides time! And then picking up stitches for the arms time! It feels like a miracle.

In other news of astonishing amazement, I finished the first draft of the story I have been working on, and I'm sure I will have lots more to say on that topic soon. For now, I am basking in the unique glory that comes with saying you're going to do things and then doing them. Now, both the story and the sweater have a lot more work ahead of them (I guess you could say the story needs to be sewed up and have some arms added to it, too). But phase one? Complete!

Jess's Future Stylish Child

So you know how in my last blog post I went on and on about how focused I am right now? How I'm not really crafting all that much? How I'm only working on Robb's sweater and the writing of an epic story? Well, it turns out I'm having trouble keeping that focus. This is hardly a surprise.

Last night as Robb and I watched the debates, I knit his sweater furiously (literally...these debates make me tense!), working row after row of knit and then purl, knit and then purl, trying my hardest not to watch the expressions on the candidates' faces (I hate watching men smirk). After an hour of knitting, I threw the cardigan over Robb's shoulders to see how much further I have to go in the back. Five more inches, including the ribbing. It's getting there folks, it really is! I'm in the zone now. However, I'm a wee bit worried that my gauge was off and we're discussing our options (there might be some panels added to the sides, beneath the underarms--a knitting maneuver that scares me. What will that do to the armholes? What do I look like, a surgeon?) At one point I declared how great I'M going to look in this sweater once it's done, so the confidence level is clearly shaky. We shall see, folks, we shall see...

In the meantime, I keep finding things that I want to knit (but can't yet) for my dear friend Jess's future stylish child. Jess is incredibly fashionable, and she's having a girl, so it only follows suit that this girl will be fashionable. (Though I'm sure that's what they all said about Chastity Bono when she was born, and that apple fell pretty far from Cher's fashion tree...which is probably a good thing.) Well, we'll have a few years of dressing Jess's little girl up before she starts forming opinions. But I MUST finish Robb's sweater before I cast on another. Really, it's imperative.

In the meantime, I'm dreaming of this little potato sack sweater. I found the inspiration on Pinterest and followed the link to this fabulous Finnish blog. I have no idea what she's saying--or if there are actual instructions on how to knit the sweater--but it's so simple, so straightforward, so timeless, I really think I could make it up. (Famous last words, I know.) I mean, it's all garter stitch! And it's chunky as all get out, which means speedy results! And it's for a baby, so no shaping! Plus that little color-blocked tummy just kills me. I think I'd avoid the hood as that just seems like I'd be asking for trouble (especially since I'm talking about making up my own pattern).

After I sketched out the potato sack above, I started thinking I might prefer an A-line sweater for this little girl. I do suspect, after all, that she's going to be very girly. Though for a baby sweater, the lines might get lost (she's not gonna do a whole lot of strolling for a while, right?). So maybe the A-line comes for her first or second birthday. I picture it with goloshes. Don't you think? So I guess I really am saving this one for a rainy day...

A Little Tableau

When Robb and I were on our honeymoon, we decided to leave the confines of our Caribbean resort and go across the street to an establishment called Tequila Joe's. I donned a faux denim romper, Robb put on his nicest cargo shorts, and we sat in the shade of the patio, sipping terrible margaritas. It should be known that the logo for Tequila Joe's is a cactus (that looks not unlike a pickle) wearing a sombrero and playing a saxophone. Lucky for you, I attempted to ride the mechanical bull at Tequila Joe's later that evening and this photo managed to capture the sign in the background.

While we were sitting on the porch of Tequila Joe's, a man by the name of Pierre approached us and asked if we wanted to buy any of his art. He had many pieces of art, this Pierre, most of which were painted with tempera paints in primary colors. I'm afraid Pierre didn't have much finesse. But then, as we were about to turn him away, he showed us this painting of an epic waterfall splashing down into a cool lagoon. There were the twin Pitons peeking above the clouds, actual palm trees with real color blending, and everything rendered to scale. That is, except for the two little primary color sailboats floating through the water. (Were they un-manned toy boats? Or was it just a very large jungle?) Pierre, I'm afraid, had taken someone else's work and painted his little boats over it, which was just pathetic enough that we gave him a twenty and declared it our first marital art acquisition. (It even came with a real plastic frame!)

Pierre's fine artwork now hangs in our living room against a dramatic red wall. Beneath the art is one of my great grandmother's Spanish dolls, and to the left is an old photograph of my great grandmother's brother, Pauly, who I learned recently had his heart broken as a young man in the 1930s. (He was a Protestant, but he married a Catholic woman and they had a child together. Their families, however, were not happy with the intermingling of the religions, so her parents convinced her to take the child and leave him; he never saw them again.)

Right in the middle of it all is a bowl I made in pottery class. It has no other purpose than to catch the errant pocket change and leftover skeins of yarn that pile up on the coffee table, but I like the way that it ties the corner together. The ridiculous painting, the stoic doll, the sadness of Pauly, and a little something I made.

So often these days I see little tableaus arranged in people's homes, and I know they mean something--at least I'd like to think they mean something--but I'm not sure what. In my home, anyway, every little thing has a story. And this was one of them.

Frida's Ensemble

In early June, Megan had a baby, and though I didn't get to meet little Miss Frida until early August, I already knew how much I would love watching her grow up. And how much I would love watching Megan grow up, too.

When I first met Megan, she was 27-years-old and had just returned from a many-months-long trip to Europe. Both wordly and world-worn, she came home to San Francisco to find that her best friend Mark had started dating a 23-year-old SoCal transplant (me). The first time Megan and I met, we huddled together in Mark's bedroom amidst a thick layer of cigarette smoke, surely listening to whatever the newest release from Bloodshoot Records was that day. We instantly became very good friends, not unlike the easy way that children make friends when they are young. Without overthinking, without wondering if the enthusiasm is shared, without wondering if you can trust your secrets, or if you're oversharing. The joy of making a lifelong friend is an instantaneous thrill, and ten years later, I'm not surprised to see the bond is still going strong.

 

In the month leading up to Frida's birth, I knit furiously and thought about who Megan would be now, what her life would look like with a child in tow, and how lucky Frida was to be born into the world of such a strong, interesting woman. I guess you could say I knit my good intentions into it, though Megan reports that they keep finding strands of my long blonde hair knitted into the fabric, so I guess you could say I knitted more than just my intentions into it? (For those with hair phobias, sorry...I know that's sort of gross. We find it funny.)

Because Megan is passionate about hot pink (and most bright colors for that matter), I figured that Frida would not be a pastel baby. But she also would not be a carbon copy of her mother...it just couldn't be so. For Frida, I chose this deeper pink, a vibrant fuchsia...let's go ahead and call it hot plum. And because she will be a San Franciscan and a German (her father is from Berlin), she will need a hood to get her through the damp winters, and she might as well start getting used to wool now. (Superwash, of course...I'm not insane.)

Soon enough I realized that it had to become an outfit, and so I whipped up this amazingly fast and satisfying baby kimono from Heather Ross's Weekend Sewing. An old tablecloth and a few yards of bias tape and we had ourselves a matching set. (For those crafty types who need a last-minute killer baby shower gift, I highly recommend.)

Before I mailed the package off to a yet-to-be-born Frida, I did what I always do with baby clothes: modeled them on my old teddy bear. (The effect is a bit creepy, but you get the point.)

Personally, I think Frida is a far cuter model. And in Megan's always excellent fashion opinion, red and hot plum do go together. I'm so glad that I made the sweater in the bigger size, so she can wear it with the super long sleeves rolled up now and still be wearing it this winter as she grows. (For those who are interested, the sweater pattern is called the Audrey Hoodie, and it's from the fabulous book Vintage Baby Knits by Kristen Rengren!)

As for meeting Frida? Words sort of can't explain. It's funny how when you meet the baby of an acquaintance, you might feel tentative and not exactly melt into a puddle from the cuteness. Hell, you might even think the child looks like a squirming alien. But when you meet your best friend's baby, you go straight over to her and grab her little hands. You find yourself holding her and bouncing around and singing a little song that you just made up, and you stare and wonder and catch glimpses of your friends' expressions in her furrowed brow. Honestly, it felt like I was meeting a person who  already knows the punchline, who already knows the stories, who is already in the club, even though she has yet to learn any of it. She will. After all, she's one of us girls now.

The Art of Endurance

I meant to write this post about two months ago. It was while I was on my stomach, sweating buckets in a Bikram yoga class, wanting to murder the instructor who held us in Eagle just a moment longer than usual. It was during the week that Robb came with me to class to see what this Bikram yoga thing was all about. (Though he had never done yoga before, and he was awfully shaky in the balancing sequence, he participated in every posture and never once sat down, which I found incredible). It was also during the time when Megan was about to have her baby, and we talked on the phone about what delivery would be like. Could she do natural child birth? She knew she would try. She knew she would insist. She knew that her mother and her grandmother, and every mom on the planet before not so long ago, had had natural childbirth (and many, in fact, lived to tell the tale), but no one--not even her mother or grandmother--could tell her what it felt like. No one could tell her what type of resources she would need to tap into to prepare, to endure. It seemed that will was the main factor, as it seems to be in just about all of life. 

I don't know that anyone is born with more will or internal strength than another, but I do think that some of us are lucky to have been given an opportunity to test our strength (and win) at an early age. My first memory of this was on a backpacking trip when I was eight years old. That summer (and for the next several that followed), my parents would pull down backpacking gear from the rafters and spread it about on the garage floor, making lists, checking and double-checking that each of us had one canteen, one sierra cup, one fork, one knife, one spoon, a flashlight, a pocket knife, enough clothes to stay cool and warm (but not too many clothes). There were ropes to tie the food in the trees away from the bears, tiny futuristic stoves that weighed about a pound, and filters to turn stream water into drinkable water. And when it was all in good order, they would start to pack, seeing what would fit. I can't recall how much Erin and I carried (I'd guess between 20 and 30 pounds), but I do believe my dad carried a 50-pound pack, which is insane. Once we were all set, off we would drive to the Sierras to meet three or four other families, where we would pick up the next leg of the John Muir trail, hiking 40 or so miles in about a week.

To pass the time on particularly grueling switchbacks (those are trails on mountains so steep they traverse the hillside horizontally, going back and forth in a zigzag up the mountain), us kids would often talk about fast food, dreaming about how many taco supremes we were going to get from Taco Bell once we got the hell off this mountain. One time we crossed paths with a guy riding a pack mule and he handed us a warm Coke to share...I will never forget the delicious burning sting of my two sips of hot soda.

Around day four of one of these trips, we left our tents and our packs and took a day trip--our goal was to climb to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite. This was supposed to be a great day...what we had all been looking forward to the entire hike. We had all gazed upon Half Dome from the floor of Yosemite valley, but not one of us had ever stood on top of it (and with good reason...it's a pain in the ass and a motherfucker of a hike). That's the part I didn't know. When I heard "day trip" and "leave your pack at camp," I was filled with glee, but upon realizing that this side trip was an 11 mile hike with a wildly steep incline...well, something in me snapped. First, I stopped talking. With every step I was filled with a wild rage, wondering why the hell we would be walking anywhere that did not take us closer to the cars. I do believe there were words exchanged with my mom. There was a long sulky sit-down on a boulder where I decided that nothing would change my foul mood. EVER. AGAIN. But seeing as turning around was not an option, something not unlike an ignition turned over inside of me, and suddenly I was off. Fuck this mountain, fuck this trail, fuck all of you who made me come here, I will get to the top of this mountain and I will get there faster than you. 

My mom told me later that she was worried I was going to hyperventilate, I was walking so fast. But I didn't. Instead, the most miraculous thing happened. During my solitary hike up that mountain, my footsteps turned into some sort of meditation, and by the time I reached the final rocky switchbacks leading up to the plateau at the foot of Half Dome, I didn't feel angry anymore. 

This is my first memory of endurance. 

And this is what I find so interesting. I don't think endurance is a physical thing. I think it is the story we tell ourselves when we are in an uncomfortable moment--no matter how big or small. It's how we talk ourselves through it. It's how we distract ourselves. Or how we allow ourselves to stomp our feet, and how we eventually listen to an inner-voice that tells us, frustratingly, that it's going to be okay, that it can't go on forever. I know it sounds crazy, but I think about this sometimes when I'm knitting and it feels like I will NEVER finish the back of the sweater. I think about this all the time when I'm in yoga. When it is 100 degrees and I can't imagine holding my leg straight and my foot in the air for another moment. But then I do. And oh, how wonderful it is when the breeze blows into the studio and I think, why do I even need television when the universe gives us such amazing gifts as the combination of sweat and breeze? 

As we climbed up the backside of Half Dome, I do believe we all felt a bit of this same sweat-and-breeze sense of wonder. How could you not? Looking at our smiles in the photo above (I'm second from the front, going through a chubby, awkward phase--note the pink sweatshirt with teddy bears and heavy bangs), you would not exactly suspect we were four days out in the wilderness and had just hiked 11 miles. Oh, but the view from the top...how could you not smile?

This week, I return to Bikram yoga. I haven't been in three weeks and I'd be lying if I said I weren't a little bit scared. I suspect it will be a lot like starting over, and my anticipation of discomfort is sky high. But at some point, I plan to remind myself that the instructor will open a door and there will be a breeze. That the next class will be easier, that I will get stronger, and that an hour and a half cannot last forever. At that point, I do believe, I will have persevered.

Welcome, Frida

Oh friends, my heart is full of joy today. You see, it's not every day that one of your best friends in the whole world gives birth to her daughter. It is a special day indeed. I knew it would be special, but I didn't think I would, say, burst into tears upon seeing her photo pop up on my phone. It's amazing what energy a little life brings into the world, no?

And so, you see, little Frida is the only thing I could possibly write about on my blog tonight. There is, in fact, a little ensemble that I made for her--a little bit sewn and a little bit knitted and just a wee bit crocheted--but I'm not sure yet if the package arrived, so until I know, I'll just give you a glimpse. Sort of like the tiny little photo that popped up on my phone today...it's just a taste of what's to come.

Since I can't be in San Francisco to gaze upon her in wonder, I spent some time today on the subway, in a moment of fitful happiness, gazing upon her from afar. Oh, but I can't wait to meet her.

June 18, 2012
Welcome, Frida. The world is already better for your existence. Megan is better for your existence. And our lives will never be the same. Nor should they. With you, our homes feel different. Our future takes a turn towards a life filled with lawns, and twirling. We can all see it, this life. I hope that in the years to come, I will walk into your house without knocking and you will give me a casual hello while you color, that our lives are just that normal. And over dinner one night, you will proudly announce that you love artichokes, and I will say I do too, and we will plan on having an artichoke eating contest someday. I hope that we talk about your bullies and your boyfriends. That I teach you how to knit one summer on a day when it rains. That we give you stories to tell your friends later in life about your amazing mama and her kooky, drunk friends. And that you, someday, might have a gang of kooky friends of your own.

Thank you, Frida, for arriving.

Cheese Mongers

Disclaimer: This blog post contains many graphic photos of cheese making, and is not recommended for the lactose intolerant or those who are leery of curds. 

With that note of caution out of the way, I'm so pleased to tell you about the adventure I had with my sister, Erin, when she came to town the weekend before last! She said to me at some point on Saturday, hey, we should make something! And I said, like what? And then she gave me a cheese-making book, so that choice was easy. (Thanks, Erin!) We immediately skipped past the do-able cheese-making for beginners and gawked at the beautiful homemade bries; the goat cheeses with fluffy interiors and gooey exteriors that look an awful lot like Humbolt Fog; we talked about Cowgirl Creamery, and we even shared some "all-time best" cheese-eating stories. And then we realized that in order to make many of our most favorite cheeses, one needs about six-to-twelve weeks and many scary-sounding ingredients that have, like, numbers in them. (MM 100 powdered mesophillic starter anyone?)

And so we quickly came to our senses and decided to go back to chapter 1 and make some normal-people cheese. The kind that can be made in an afternoon and eaten that night. After all, we only had the weekend! So we chose two cheeses: Queso blanco from Artisan Cheese-Making at Home, and the microwave mozzarella from The Bust DIY Guide to Life. 

The key to both recipes (and, I suspect, most cheese-making) is this: get some milk, heat it up, add acid to it, and watch it curdle!

Queso blanco began with a gallon of milk in a stockpot, which we slowly heated up to a steamy 195 degrees. It took about 25 minutes, which should have been good sister catch-up time, but instead we just took turns staring at the thermometer, watching it go up one degree at a time. We were very excited!

When we weren't staring at the thermometer, we prepped our cheesecloth! We were very nervous about our cheesecloth for some reason. We were both so sure that it would slip beneath the curds and all of those delicious bits would then fall through the colander holes! So we binder clipped the cloth in place. Total dorks.

At exactly 195 degrees, we nervously poured in our 1/3 cup of white distilled vinegar. Almost immediately, the curds plumped up and pushed away from the whey. I was about to say it was like magic, but it wasn't. It was like SCIENCE.

We took turns stirring the curds and making gross faces, because curds are gross looking. And then, after we let it sit for about ten minutes (the whey turns sort of green at this point, by the "whey"...and the book told us it was normal, so no judging). Scooping the curds out of the pot and into the cheesecloth was sort of the best part. So we took this video. (It's really short. And bad.)

And then I took lots of close-up shots of curds. 

Once the cheese drained a bit, we sprinkled a teaspoon of kosher salt over the cheese and mixed it up with our hands. The book did not warn us that the curds would still be very hot! Apparently this cheese-making business is not for sissies. After a few minutes exclaiming "hoo-ha-ha-hawt!", we hog-tied the cheesecloth and strung that puppy to the sink to drain. Isn't it horrifying looking? Horrifyingly delicious, that is.

In the meantime, we needed to get our mozzarella on. The recipe in the Bust DIY Guide to Life is called "Around the Whey, Girl," and I am very proud to tell you that I resisted singing the LL Cool J song while making this cheese.

 

I'll admit, Erin and I were both dubious about this one. We love mozzarella SO MUCH, and we were certain we would somehow fail. At one point she said, look at that cheese in the photo! It's perfect! And I had to confess that it's actually a stock photo. (Sorry, Erin! Sometimes insider information can be discouraging.)

We got out our big guns: Citric acid and vegetable rennet, both purchased at Brooklyn Kitchen that morning. This time, we combined our gallon of milk and citric acid in a stockpot and heated it up to a mere 90 degrees. At that point, we added the rennet and stirred softly, while an explosion of curds started to form. (Again: SCIENCE.) The recipe tells you to let it sit for three to five minutes, the less time the softer the cheese. Since Erin likes her cheese hard (there should probably be an innuendo there), we let it sit for five. 

At this point, I think we did something wrong, because the recipe tells you to "cut" through the curds with a knife, but ours looked like this. It was like cutting through cottage cheese soup with a knife, so...we skipped to the next step. Which was fine!

Next came the fun part: Kneading the mozzarella! It starts out looking kind of soupy, but then you drain off some of the whey and heat the mozzarella in the microwave for a minute. And then you knead it again and it starts to look like this:

And then you heat it in the microwave for 30 more seconds and knead it again and it starts to look like this:

A shiny happy ball of cheese!

Since it was Erin's last night in town, we decided to take our picnic to Robb's bar and have an al fresco dinner, including a baguette, tomatoes, pesto, arugula, and an advil container full of kosher salt (it made perfect sense at the time.)

And now you're probably wondering...how did it taste?? It tasted amazing!! Both of them! No really! The queso blanco was like a much more flavorful cottage cheese. I liked to scoop mine onto crackers and eat it with lemony arugula. Yum! And the mozzarella was so very much like mozzarella, we were shocked. In hindsight, I would have gone for a slightly softer cheese (thanks a lot, Erin), and one less round in the microwave, but with a slice of tomato and a generous sprinkle of kosher salt, it was quite perky indeed.

And of course, in documenting our feast, Erin (being the big sister) had the sense to smile for the photo with her mouth closed, unlike yuck-o wine mouth to her right.

And that, my friends, is the story of how two sisters make cheese. But guess what? You don't need to have a sister to make cheese! You just need a gallon of milk, some acid, and a dream.

One-by-One Rib

Last week, somewhere in the sky above the midwest, I fell a little bit in love with one-by-one rib.  I had been furiously "making" things for weeks and weeks--peppermint bark, gift-buying lists, books, blog posts, HeyAllday Bags, trips to the post office, trips to the dog park--and I realized I had not spent a lot of time doing what I truly wanted to be doing. Relaxing. Enjoying the sensation of coming inside from the cold. Icy beers with friends. And I have been lacking a fraction of the dimension required to do what I have really been wanting to be doing these days: write. It was in the air, in a janky Spirit Airlines jet, that I began to make a new winter hat for Robb, and I found a fraction of an eighth of this space.

You see, I'm a knit girl, not a purl girl. I like to work round after round of mindless Stockinette without even looking down, then suddenly look at my hands to see that I've knit an inch or two. So I was a bit chagrined to discover that the hat I wanted to make was worked in 1x1 rib--one knit, one purl, over and over again, for what feels like the rest of your life. It's that bring the yarn forward, bring the yarn back thing that really slows you down and ruins the flow of the movement. There I was, on an airplane, in what was probably the first two hour stretch of non-rushed time I had experienced in a month, and I was concerned about speed. (Note: This irony did not occur to me until much later. I think we hardly ever realize, in the moment, when we are being ridiculous.) I slogged through the first few rounds of this hat, begrudgingly noting how smooth the merino was (it's Berroco Pure Merino). By round five, the fabric had started to double in on itself in that way that ribbing does, where the purl columns get hidden beneath the dense squish of knits. The fabric takes on a quality that I can only describe as "sproingy," and it just gets better and better with ever round. Denser, sproingier, squishier, cozier. Soon enough I realized that I could not put it down, and it wasn't because I wanted to be finished, but because I was fascinated by what I was making. I did not listen to music, I didn't talk to a soul, I didn't think about the people in the neighboring seats. I may not have even had a sip of water.

Enough has been said on the topic of knitting being a meditative activity, so I won't bore you with further description of my trancelike state. (Nor will I pretend that knitting this hat solved any of my problems or removed any of the knots in my shoulders--in fact, it probably introduced a few.) But having two hours to focus exclusively on something so delectably simple and repetitive was a necessary transition for my brain.

I'm sure at this point you're becoming scared that this blog post will get too serious, and so to assuage your fears I felt I should probably include this photo of Robb trying on his hat. Almost there!

And now, it's New Year's Eve. I'm decreasing the crown. I'm writing this blog post. We've taken the dog to the dog park every day since we've been home (sometimes twice!). We've seen our friends. We've watched really bad movies (including Mannequin and Christine). We've napped, we've slept in, we've eaten pizza three times this week. In essence, we've slowed down and enjoyed some peace, preparing ourselves for this new year. For its challenges, transitions, discomforts, and excellent successes. I've been asking myself today, what have I done this year? And aside from some obvious things that were pretty exciting (A promotion at work! A puppy at home! The creation of the Modern Carpet Bag!), I can't help but feel that this has been one of those years that sets you up for other years. Let's call it a stepping stone year.

I will tell you a secret: I write this blog so that I will keep writing. One of my authors asked me recently, in all seriousness, what book are you going to write? And I was a little surprised to find that she asked. And I was even more surprised to find that I didn't know. I do love crafting. Would it be a craft book? Probably not exactly, though I'm not ruling it out. What I do know is this: I like to write about life--both the awful and the hilarious--and that is what this eventual book will be. This blog, in its own peculiar way, is me practicing. I hope you like my drafts.

And to that author who asked me what book I will write, thank you for taking me seriously.

To My Parents, Who Make Funny Faces

 

December in our family is not just about Christmas. It is about birthdays--two of them, in fact--my mom and dad, the love birds who are five years and one week apart. I could probably say something about both of them being Sagittarius--I do, after all, have a history of writing horoscopes--but truth be told, I don't know a lot about their shared astrological sign. What I do know a lot about is their shared tendency to make crazy faces in photos.

We recently stumbled upon a few prime examples from their youth, and my parents were just silly enough to put them into a digital format and send them to me. ME, who has a BLOG. Didn't they know that these photos would eventually find their way onto the interwebs?

But see, that's the thing--they don't really care. In my family, there has never been a lot of vanity. It takes quite a lot to embarrass one of us, and I consider that to be one of the greatest gifts that they could bestow on me and my sister. When we were growing up, comedy and kindness were always king in our house. Fart jokes trumped poise-and-beauty most days of the week, and when a camera came out, we tried to make nice faces--we really did--but more often than not, one of us looked ridiculous, and the most ridiculous photos always seemed to be the ones that made it onto the fridge.

The photo at top features my mom and her sister, and I see so much of me and my sister in their expressions. (Especially after a drink or two.) When we were growing up, Aunt Ginny and her family would come over for holidays, and we would watch our mother transform from a vacuum-wielding stress case to a goofy sister. Between the two of them, there would be jokes mumbled under their breath followed by loud eruptions of laughter. Each year as we got older, the mumbled jokes got a bit louder (and crasser), which was how we learned to be quite polite yet incredibly bawdy little ladies--one of the more important lessons I've learned in my life, I must say.

My dad, on the other hand, has always been an outright goofball--there's nothing subtle about it. I looked through one of his photo albums recently from when he was a kid and was delighted to see that he was making a funny face or doing something unorthodox in nearly every photo. On Halloween, his friends dressed as space rangers or cowboys, and there he was, dressed in a hula skirt with a coconut bikini top. And here he is again in the photo below--yup, he's the one on the right, in yet another bikini top. (Who the other two guys are, I'm not sure, but, um, they seem to share a similar sense of humor.) I guess I didn't realize that people took pictures like this in the '50s. Didn't their mothers scold them for making faces? Or tell them not to cross-dress? Did I imagine that everything looked like a Norman Rockwell painting? Well, clearly it didn't--my father is living proof.

And so, for their birthdays this week--my Dad's was the 13th and my Mom's is today--I wanted to pay homage to their goofy sides. This personality trait is one of my favorite inheritances, and, I believe, has contributed greatly to the richness of their lives. To know my parents is to know great fun. After all, nothing is so serious that we can't laugh about it.

Puppies!!!

Dear friends! I'm sorry to have disappeared on you! It seems like it's been AGES (or at least a week) since I last wrote. Not that you're looking for excuses--we've never been ones for excuses, you and I--and not that you've been counting the days. But I do feel I need to explain. See, there was a last-minute cross-country trek to see my parents who have just moved to a tiny town in the Sierras, and there were all those mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving along with several glasses of wine and a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle, and then there was a quick jaunt to San Francisco to see my glorious left-coast friends and eat super burritos from El Farolito and animal-style grilled cheeses from In N Out Burger and hike to the top of Bernal Hill. And then there was this puppy. That's right, all in one week! From turkey-day travels to first time dog owners, it's been a week for the record books.

Yesterday marked the first day I attempted to re-enter real life. After a few hours of playing with our new little pup (who is tentatively named Indie--or Doctor Jones, if you prefer), I turned to Robb and said, I need to photograph my newest bags! And the sun is going down at like 2pm these days! And so we grabbed the camera and the dog--who only the night before had learned how to walk on a leash (see me snapping my fingers and whistling above? That's how he knows I'm the boss!)--and we headed down to my favorite neighborhood brick wall for a little photo shoot. 

We didn't intend for Indie to be in the shots, but he just sat his cute butt down next to me and refused to move. So I stepped on his leash so he wouldn't run out into the street (not that he would do that...he's a very civilized dog), and Robb started snapping photos. Of course, most of the shots are squirmy and ridiculous, but there were actually a few usable ones in the mix!

Other than Indie lending his cuteness to the photos, I must say that yesterday was the first day I started to see how one can be a puppy owner and still manage to have a life. Or a job. Or a blog. As we were sitting in the dog shelter on Saturday afternoon, waiting for our adoption paperwork to go through, I have to admit that I wondered if we weren't losing our minds. Who gets a dog during the holidays? How am I going to make HeyAllday bags with a puppy running amuck in the house? Are we total lunatics??? And yes, perhaps we are lunatics. But if the last two days have shown me anything, it's that part of life is accepting new challenges. And while constantly watching a puppy to see what he's put in his mouth can be tedious, just having him around is opening up my heart in all sorts of new ways. Maybe I won't make as many bags as I wanted to this holiday season, and maybe all of my Christmas shopping will have to happen online this year. But I have a sneaky suspicion that it will all be worth it.

Of course, I can't wait to tell you more about my other adventures last week, which include cowboy hats made out of construction paper and a satanic sewing machine, but I felt I would be remiss to not first introduce you to our new addition.

Yay!! Puppies!!!!!

Monkey Face, 1951

Just a little note for today. Because I was just looking at these photos and was thinking about family. And about genes. About why my skin can get somewhat tan and has moles, but my sister is covered in freckles and burns with the sunrise. And yet we can both perfectly replicate that monkey face our Dad (shown at center) is making.

I've been wondering why I only had three wisdom teeth. And how my knees will most likely fail me in this lifetime (and my eyes, too, though they're still going strong). And how my face looks sleepy like my mom's in the morning.

I was thinking about my grandmother (shown below...she's the one in the back), and how fabulous I bet she was. How her face lights up. And how I secretly hope my face lights up, too, in that very same way. Though I have to admit that I've also caught myself mid-scowl, keys in hand, ready to go, done talking, not unlike my grandpa on the left.

While I spend most of my days staring at gorgeous handmade creations and excellent modern photography, I find that these photos--at least today--are more mysterious and enthralling. And sometimes, even though we have a million entertainments at our fingertips, it's most satisfying to ponder the stuff we're made of (a.k.a., our parents' biggest DIY projects of all.)

Stroll Down Memory Highway

Friends! I feel like I've been gone for a million years. But for those of you in the knitting world, you'll be happy to know that I was up to something good. As you may or may not know, we are doing a third book in the Custom Knits series with Wendy Bernard (the second book comes out in October!), and I got to join our amazing LA crew for the photo shoot. And here's a fun fact: Did you know that Wendy and I both grew up in the same town and went to the same high school? In fact, she lives in the same neighborhood where my parents live! So Wendy was kind enough to pick me up at my parent's house and drive me to the shoot each day. (Like a typical non-driving New Yorker, my driver's license expired months ago and I only just recently noticed.)

So, while the days were long and the knits were plentiful, the shoot days were very fun. The crew was incredibly talented and easy-going, the weather was wonderful, and we got to do things like go out on a sailboat (praying that the amazing bikini-clad model wouldn't fall into the ocean and/or get hypothermia...it was chilly out there!)

At nights and on the weekend, however, was the really hard work. And it had nothing to do with knitting. See, my parents got this idea in their head about six months ago that they are ready to retire and move to the mountains. So, as of this August, our lovely suburban house of 32 years will go up for sale. And in the meantime, my parents have had 32 years worth of renovations to do. And last week, my sister and I had 32 years of crap to sift through. Exhibit A: This box.

Do you know what's in this box? This box alone contained every single note that I received between 7th and 9th grade. That's right, this doesn't even cover the rest of high school. That's every little "hey chica, what's up?" Every love letter. Every "this class is SO lame." Every letter I ever wrote in a fury and never sent. Many of them were still folded up in that intricate origami style favored by tweens and teens...why did we do that anyway? For the convenience of passing the note in class? Did we have an obsession with pull tabs? Is it because they're the perfect size for fitting in your back jeans pocket? There were thousands THOUSANDS of these notes, and while I didn't read every single one, I did at least take a look at each one. Some were saved for further investigation and for inflicting humiliation on friends. Most were tossed. (I may look like a hoarder, but I swear I'm not!)

Some gems popped up, like an elementary school classmate's headshots. (Nice Don Johnson, Andy!)

 

Diaries were read aloud to the amusement of the whole family. A particular favorite was this entry from Erin which reads, "Dear Diary, I've got to do it. HANDS ACROSS USA!"

My "We Are the World" record resurfaced...!

As did my beloved Ramona Quimby and the Sweet Pickles gang.

 

(Do you remember these awesome endpapers???)

 

Of course my favorite literary find was not the vintage Nancy Drews, but...you guessed it: my Sweet Valley High books. Oh those Wakefield twins! You were so slutty and unlikable, but I just couldn't stop reading about your lives!!

And here I feel a need to put a special spotlight on book #6, titled "All Night Long", in which Jessica apparently dates a mustachioed gay man. Was this really what we thought of when we thought of "bad boys" in the '80s?

 

We found ugly earrings from the '80s...slick gobs of plastic molded into geometric shapes.

And heart-shaped earrings with hearts in them for me. What every 5th grader wants to wear, clearly!

 

We found Raggedy Ann, whose pants refused to stay up. (Much to our hilarity.) 

Aunt Ginny came over on Saturday afternoon and we pulled out the Barbie trunk, which contains about 5 mutilated Barbies, 2 cross-dressed Kens (we never had any boy clothes for them other than those blue swim shorts!), and Barbie clothes that spanned several decades. You see, my mom and aunt used to play with Barbies, too, and their grandmother made clothes for the Barbies, including several of the ones shown below. 

Just look at this sweet little dress!

While mom and Aunt Ginny got nostalgic about their childhood, Erin and I confessed to having a special place in our hearts for the Barbie clothes of the '70s and '80s. We definitely preferred the Star Search "spokesmodel" gowns and sparkly bell bottoms when it came to Barbie's wardrobe.

Last but not least, we had to deal with the dolls. Not Barbies, mind you, but our Great Grandma Neva's collection of international dolls. Neva had many interests in her life, but one of her greatest passions was collecting dolls from around the world. Some were bought at Buffums, while others were made in remote villages in countries far far away and brought home for her by traveling friends. And since she passed away 30 years ago, my mom has kept the dolls boxed up in the rafters of the garage. Every few years when we were growing up, Erin and I would beg her to get out the boxes so that we could unwrap each one and marvel. These weren't for playing, they were for investigating. Some are scary, some are gorgeous. Each one is fascinating and exotic. We counted them all, but then we found another box, so I believe the final count was somewhere around 140 dolls. We unwrapped each doll and propped it up against the walls in the family room. We gave up on organizing the dolls by country, and so they became a sort of "Small World"-esque collection of freaks and fancy.

There were dolls from Spain and Mexico, Ecuador and England. (I took the two tall ones shown above. I LOVE them.)

There were dolls from Japan, and dolls bearing fruit. Even a few dolls that had been nibbled on by rats (I'm not joking) like the lady on the left (above).

There were dolls with missing parts, like this one that we named "Holly Bucket Hands".

There were fancy Parisian dolls (I took these ones, too)...

...Iranian cloth dolls, and Native American dolls picked up on reservations in the 1950s.

Dancing dolls from Thailand stood alongside porcelain geishas and shellacked stands.

In the end, the four of us flipped coins to decide on an order, and then we went through and each picked a handful of our favorites. I don't think any of us took more than 10 dolls. And the rest, I'm afraid, we'll be giving away to charity. There's only so long you can carry around another person's collection, and while we love them, none of us has room for 140 dolls. So we took our favorites, and now we'll display them. Better to have a few treasures out in the open than a collection out in the garage.

Aunt Ginny wondered if Neva was watching us from beyond as we played with her doll collection, fought over our favorites, and giggled at their disrepair. And I would have to say yes, without a doubt. Neva's presence, as well as the presence of so many other ancestors, was loud and clear all of last weekend. From Great Grandma Katie's crocheted and embroidered dish towels to Great Great Grandpa Myron's underlined passages in century-old books and hand-written sermons tucked between the pages.

The moment when I most felt their presence here, in our present world, was when my mom found a photo--one of many in a mish-moshed shoebox--of a house in North Hollywood that my great great grandparents moved into when they first came to Los Angeles in the 1930s. It was a lovely single story Spanish style house, and on the backside was written an address, a description of the facade, and a mention of the young jacaranda trees that were planted in the front yard. I said to my mom, let's look it up on Google maps! Maybe it's still there? And so we typed in the address and switched to the satellite view, which first showed us a view of the greater LA area. As we clicked to zoom in, we saw the neighborhood, the street, and then there we were, at street level, looking at the exact same house--the same arches, the same white stucco, the same tiles--as shown in the photo from the 1930s. Aside from a swapped out fence, all that was different were the jacaranda trees, which now reach far beyond the roof of the house and are full of purple blossoms.