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  • A trip to the movies

    Somewhere around mid to late afternoon yesterday I became totally overwhelmed  with matters of insurance and costs, and all of the details and decisions that have to be made.  I really wanted to just go to bed and pull the covers over my head and hope the world would go away, but it didn't really work that way.  My head wouldn't stop spinning and I couldn't relax and yet I couldn't make any decisions either.

     

    Instead of going to bed I went to see Red.  And I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It is not a great movie.  The plot is somewhat weak, and the whole thing is incredibly far fetched, unrealistic an silly as all get out, and it is precisely this that makes it so much fun.  And it was fun.  It was laugh out loud silly fun and it had a happy ending.  What more could I ask for?  Well, there was a fabulous cast, who may not have had the "best" roles of their lives, but who were obviously allowed to just have some fun and they were marvelous.  Bruce Willis underplays the role with just enough sardonic wit to really make it work and his character is both likable and threatening all at once.  Helen Mirren manages to be elegantly calm and utterly collected while at the same time using heavy artillery with almost childish glee  John Malkovitch is just perfectly insane as only John Malkovitch can be, and  Mary Louise Parker is pitch perfect as the incredulous girl who gets sucked into this maelstrom.

    It was a funny, zany, escapist flick, and exactly what I needed.

  • Planning: Full of Promise and yet Bittersweet

    Yesterday I took a little slice of time and played around with graph paper.

     

    I was planning my new studio.  It sounds frivolous considering how little sewing I've done.  I haven't done all that much knitting in the last week either, I think about 6 to 8 rows in 4 days. But of course I will sew and knit again.

     

    Much of the past week has been spent coming to terms with the fact that my house will never be the same again and thinking about how best to accommodate the future.  Oh, I am planning for G to come home, and it appears he will be coming home far sooner than previously anticipated.  And although I want him to come home, I also know that home will never be the same.  I am advised that he will come home with a walker, possibly a back-up wheelchair, and very likely 24 hour care, and at least night-time care.    This means he will be confined to the main part of the house, that he will not be coming up the roughly quarter-flight to the master bedroom, that he will sleep in his own room with an aide or "sitter" on hand.  I don't think he realizes this yet.  I don't think my body and my soul have quite come to terms with this yet either, although my intellect is weighing the options and calculating the potential outcomes.

     

    During the time G was in the hospital and now, at the rehab place, dealing with all the uncertainty has forced me to readjust to the house, to come to terms with it differently than before.  The house seems so different from what it was but a few weeks ago.  At first, I could only spend the evenings in the kitchen and the bedroom even though I could not sleep.  Now I have reacquainted myself with the house and I have thought extensively about what changes needed to be made to make the house work for G when he comes home.  And even though he is making great progress and will be ready to be home before I will have everything in place, he will still not be coming up the stairs and we will still have separate rooms.

     

    Which still leaves me with a space that was once our space and which will now, by necessity, be my space alone.  Night-time is the hardest.  Our bed is no longer ours and it is haunted by his absence.  It is quite possible that in order to cope with change I will have to take what was ours and make something separate, something which is mine.

     

    And this is how I found myself with occupied with a tape measure and some graph paper making plans.  My sewing room is in a bedroom right next to the master bedroom.  It is is small 9.5 x 10 feet, although it is not the smallest "bedroom" in the house, it is the second-smallest.  It will become my bedroom and the larger room, the room that was the master will become my new sewing space.  It is larger, at 13 x 16 it is the largest private room in the house, the largest room that can be closed off from the rest by means of a door.  All the public rooms are open to one another.  It will be my new sewing space, and even though it is slightly more than twice the size of my current space, it will be fairly full, but I think a very workable space.  

     

    The seeds have been planted for this new space, but it is not my first priority, not yet.  I still need to prepare for G's return; I need figure out exactly what will happen, and when.  Perhaps I am still clinging to the hope that the guest room can become our room and not just G's room.  I do realize that this may be a futile dream, but I am not quite ready to surrender. I also realize that regardless of what happens I will need to create a different space for myself, a space that is a new space, not a space haunted by memories.  But I am not ready to embrace that space quite yet, just to acknowledge that it is coming.

  • So Long, Farewell…..

    Yesterday I took the first step in the seasonal sorting of the closets.

     

    IMG_4213 There were two casualties:

     

    The two skirts I made this summer are now too large, enough too large that they look sloppy and dowdy and do not stay in place.  I can tie the sash tighter on the blue skirt, but doing so does not make it more attractive.

     

    It is somewhat more difficult to give up things I have made, as opposed to things I have purchased. But I made myself promise that I would not hold on to them, that I would make them and wear them as much as possible, not hiding them in the closet, and willingly give them up when the time came.  And so I did make them.  And I did wear them frequently.  And now it is time to part. It is true that for a moment I paused, thinking they would be easy enough to alter, but then I stopped myself. There will always be something new, no need to cry over clothes that have had their day.  

     

    If you missed them, the blue skirt was here. and the rose-print skirt was here.

     

    There are two skirts which need minor alterations and are in the "wait-and-see" pile where there fate will be determined after I finish the entire closet purge.

     

    Picture 24 This leaves three skirts, which is not a bad number from a purely functional standpoint.  

     

    There are two black pencil skirts much like this one (photo courtesy of Nordstrom.com).  They are both St. John Santana Knit skirts.  One is the length shown on the model, the other is slightly longer, hitting just at the bottom of the kneecap.  This particular pencil skirt is something I consider a basic, and I have kept one in my closet for many many years.  They get frequent wear, never bag out, and last forever.

     

    At the moment, with my more casual lifestyle the short skirt is seeing the most wear, but the longer one is more dressy, and yes, more conservative.    There may yet be times in my life when I wish to wear it though, so I have kept both. 

     

    IMG_4220 The other skirt is less versatile and is also a skirt I posted on the sewing blog years ago.  I still have it.  It still looks good, or perhaps more exactly, it looks good again.  It is a heavier wool skirt by Day Birger et Mikkelsen.  I wish it would be cold enough to wear it for Thanksgiving, but that may be iffy; it will work for Christmas dinner as well.

     

  • Late-Blooming Beauty

    IMG_4211 I haven't managed to clean out and replant the long flower bed at the end of my driveway yet this season and now I have a reward for my procrastination.  A single iris has thrown up a third bloom (these irises typically bloom in May/June and again in September).  It is a bright spot of joy amidst all the brown dying foliage.

     

    There are three more buds on this stalk and as I plan to work in this flower bed this weekend, I shall simply have to work around it and save this small section for later, or next spring.

  • Talismanic Knitting

    Giant purls Friday I started a new project.  It was a simple project utilizing a fun yarn I had just picked up at my friend Theresa's new yarn shop:  Out of the Loop.  It is basically a bulky wool yarn, meant to be knit on size 15 to 19 needles, with felted balls of wool tied periodically throughout the skein.

     

    I intended to make a simple cowl and thought it would be a fun hospital-knitting project.  Little did I know that this simple project would prove to be my lifeline on a rather difficult day. 

     

    But first the specs:

     

    IMG_4206 Yarn:  U-Knitted Nations Giant Purls 1 skein equals 80 yards

     

    Needle: size 17 circular needle.

     

    Pattern:  a simple tube.  I cast on 48 stitches, joined them and simply knit until I ran out of yarn.

     

    I am very happy with the results of this project although it is far from perfect.  If you look closely you will see quite a bit of variation in my tension and the general texture of my knitting.  As I said it proved to be a difficult Friday.  

    My tension at the beginning was rather consistently loose.  I am, by nature, a loose knitter and I was focusing on trying to keep the stitches loose as I wanted a rather soft fabric with nice drape for this cowl and I feared it would become too stiff.   I actually think the felted purls fall more nicely where the scarf is more loosely knit.

     

    The day began innocuously enough waiting for the doctor to come in with the results of a bevy of tests.   The results were not good, were not what I wanted to hear, what I expected to hear.  My knitting would be shoved aside, then picked up again and I would knit desperately, as if wrapping a small bit of yarn around a stick would make the world right again.  My tension varied widely during this period, although I was not aware of it at the time.  

     

    Then after many discussions with many doctors, I entered a phase of fierce determination.  We would figure this out.  I had a list of rehabilitation hospitals to research and I was determined to do the best job possible over the weekend.  But first I had to finish the cowl.  For some reason I felt I could not walk out that door, I could not move forward, until I finished that project as if dangling yarn was an omen of doom.  My hands were holding the needles tightly and my gauge became much tighter and more evenly spaced again as I raced to the finish.  The end result was that the cast-off end of the cowl is smaller than the cast-on end.  But it works and I rather like it this way.

     

    I've had many projects that remind me of the place and time of their knitting.  I treasure these sweaters:  the sweater I knit on a flight to Paris.  The cabled sweater in Noro Kureyon that I knit as we drove around western Texas the year we went to Big Bend.  The sweater I knit on my first Amazon Cruise.  Now I have this cowl, and although it does not remind me of exotic locales, it is equally treasured, its inconsistencies speaking volumes.

     

    IMG_4195 I kept that cowl in the bottom of my purse all weekend as I toured rehab centers.  I would occasionally reach my hand down into my purse just to feel it there as if the softness of the wool and the nubbly felted balls would help me with my decision.  At one point on Sunday I even wore the cowl as I had run out without a coat and there was a cold wind.  The warm cowl brightened my spirits as well as my neck as the wind whipped about. Every stitch of that wool was a piece of the puzzle, every stitch would help me make the right decision.

     

  • Transfer Day or what I wore on Tuesday

    IMG_4169 To tell the truth, I never intended to be absent so long, and I hope to be able to maintain a more stable schedule now that G has been transferred to a rehab facility.

     

    You see, he has been in the hospital since last Wednesday and I have been tired, worried, hopeful, sad, tired, frantic, angry, busy, and, did I say tired?  I have meant to write but I come home exhausted both mentally and physically.  I try to sleep but I only sleep a few hours and then wake up worrying about everything:  What will happen?  What do I need to do?  When will G come home?  Will G come home?  What will he need?  Am I doing the right things?  

     

    G used to be the one who would lay awake at night worrying, while I slept sweetly beside him.  Now it seems that this house requires a worrier, and in his absence I have assumed the mantle. I am hoping that now that he is in rehab, things will be calmer and more stable, and perhaps I shall worry a little less, or at least that I shall worry a little less under cover of darkness.

     

    It has been cold and windy here and yesterday my car was due to go into the shop and G was scheduled for possible transfer so my cushy life of driving my car from my warm garage to the hospital garage where I could walk through the indoor walkway to the hospital without being outside for more than a few feet was about to come to an end.

     

    Picture 8 It was time for a coat.  This one was chosen by G a few weeks ago, when we were out shopping for other things and he was his old bright charming self.  It shall remain nameless as it has no tags, but is warm filled nylon with a rabbit collar.  I wore it with the Elm skirt which I purchased last spring and Brian Atwood boots, purchased from Yoox a few seasons back.  I was hoping the coat with its strong positive G-vibe would be a good luck charm, and, feeling in need of positive reinforcement, I also chose these oxidized silver earrings by Annette Ferdinandsen which G gave me for my birthday two years ago, even though they were a bit light for the gusts of wind and were beating about my face whenever I was outdoors.

     

    IMG_4162 Underneath the coat I wore a gray rayon jersey draped top I made a few years back using the Hot Patterns Weekender Renaissance Tops pattern.

     

    The nice thing about being bone tired is that apparently I am far less inhibited in front of the self-timer on the camera.   My stiff reserve has been beaten under the table and my more uninhibited silly side has been allowed to sneak out.   I know G would like the first photo better, but I am rather fond of this one, as it captures my more spontaneous ridiculous side.  I'm going to hang on to it to remind myself of the importance of being silly no matter what else is going on in life.

     

     

  • Shhhh!

    I'm sleeping, but I will return.

  • Sometimes I wonder…

    "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men", as Robert Burns said, "gang aft agley"…

     

    Well, perhaps not as seriously awry as they did for poor Lenny Small.  

     

    Still, there was no gardening yesterday.  There was not much of anything but waiting and worrying and helping. Not that I am complaining about that, because such is not my purpose.  

     

    Apparently it was the sciatica that kept my G in bed on Sunday, and allowed me to garden, which kept him from being able to walk on Monday and sent us to the emergency room where he was examined, x-rayed, and promptly sent home, still basically unable to stand more than a few seconds or walk more than a couple of feet at best.  We feared a hip fracture or dislocation, but there was nothing more serious to be found other than sciatica, which is apparently not an adequate diagnosis for admission, even in an frail elderly male whose grip on ambulation is often tenuous in the best of circumstances. But that too, and any thoughts I might have on age, aging, and healthcare in one of the richest countries in the world, are also not the purpose of this post.    Although they might be.

     

    Instead my musings run in a more frivolous vein.

     

    Would G have been sent home if he lived alone?  What if I, his spouse, were older and also frail and unable to support him and keep him from falling, or God forbid pick him up from the floor after a fall?  Would they have sent him home?  I don't honestly know.  Actually no one asked about his home situation.  This may not be surprising as I was there with him.  Except that everyone assumed I was his daughter.  This often caught me by surprise, and I did not really expect it as I told everyone I was his wife.  The ambulance crew knew this, and I informed his nurse, the admitting clerk, the x-ray tech and the doctor the first time I met him.  So why did he ask me if I learned anything about sciatica growing up with my dad?  My dad was a history professor, and yes I learned a great deal about Ren & Ref but not much about sciatica. The doctor must have forgotten, although it is true that I gave up on correcting him.  Perhaps he just wasn’t connecting what I said, what should have been there in G’s record, with what his eyes and his own biases were telling him.  And this does bother me.  If the medical staff cannot overcome their own basic prejudices concerning this, whether I am wife as I say or daughter as they feel I appear, if decisions and opinions are based on faulty perceptions, what else are they missing?

     

    We have been fine at home.  Yesterday I stuck close and looked after G.  I am strong and I can help support him.  Getting up the steps into the house is proved far easier than getting down the steps would have been.  But I knew that would be the case.

     

    Today I will have help in looking after G so I can look after the other things that need looking after.  And yet I still wonder what I would have done had I not the resources to bring in help.  I suppose I would have made more of a fuss.  I didn't.  I knew G would be happier at home.  I knew I could handle the situation, at least in the short term, beyond that I don't yet know.  We hope for improvement.  

     

    Still, I wonder….

     

    We have come a long way from the age when a family might tie an aged relative to the bed to keep them safe… or have we?

     

     

  • Who Knew?

    Who knew that this woman, Texas born and bred, loved working outside on the chill autumn days?  Not I apparently, although perhaps I should have realized this by now.  

     

    In the summer heat I hated the garden, hated working in it, longed to hide myself indoors peering out.  I liked early morning walks through the garden, at least on those early mornings where the humidity didn't start out at 90%.  In the heat of this past summer I wondered if I truly had it in me to garden, to work outdoors.  I thought I had lost my mind planning flower beds and vegetable gardens.  I forgot how nice it was to be outside on a cool crisp day.

     

    Yesterday was a gardening day, and it started in a bit of a panic.  I have been working in bits and pieces here and there, but not getting enough done, and Sunday morning it really hit me that it was almost November and November means  "winter is a coming in" after all. Not only was it almost November it was cold and blustery, and the first time I went outdoors, I came right back indoors in search of warmth.

     

    But there was too much to do that I went right back outdoors, and you know what?  I loved it.  I planted another couple of hundred bulbs and finished planting the stone beds in the front yard, or at least I finished all the planting I had planned on doing this fall.    I even managed to clean out some of the pots and wash them, allowing them to dry in the sun before putting them indoors for the winter.  

     

    I loved feeling warm and toasty in my down vest while the cool wind licked my face and made my nose run.  I love the way the vest allows me to have my arms free to work, but provides just enough warmth so that I can be both cool and toasty all at once. I loved the red-cheeked feeling of the wind against my face.  In the cool sunshine work didn't seem quite so onerous.  I had to work after all to stay warm and the work felt like dancing.  Pushing bulbs into the soft soil, making spots for new perennials and a few small shrubs, cutting back and mulching, always moving but not rushing.  Even though the need to put the garden to bed for the winter is a kind of ending, it is also filled with promise and I felt myself smiling and felt my own eyes laughing as I  nestled plants in the soil, snug under their mulch blanket, ready to come out next spring.

     

    Of course I didn't finish.  But I got far enough along that now I know I will finish in time.  Soon enough the planting will be done, the pots will be put away, and winter will be at my door.  This year I feel ready for it, ready for rest, ready for hibernation, ready for sweet dreams and bright new beginnings.  Autumn feels full of promise to me, like slipping between the sheets at night ready to slumber sweetly and face the new day.  

     

  • Simple

    Sometimes I wish all days could be simple clear and lovely.

    IMG_3998