Election Rant Can Wait. Here is a 6-year-old Doing Something Important

Alright, so I tend to blog when something's really bugging me... Like politics. And you'll get the ranting soon, but it's all tangled up in my brain right now and I can't be articulate yet about everything I'm feeling ranty about.

Recreationally (as opposed to politically) my Twitter universe includes Neil Gaiman, because I like his books and his voice and he goes interesting places and tweets interesting and thinky tweets. One of his interesting Tweets today was this one:

RT @tafallen: 6yr old Jack's raising £ for Edinburgh Sick Kids Hospital. Donate & he'll draw you a pic:www.jackdrawsanything.com

Now, I'm sure he's busy and often just fires of an interesting RT as a favour to someone, and I don't look at all of them but the URL sounded cute, so I went and looked at JackDrawsAnything
Not only is it totally adorable - what a great kid to be thinking on this kind of scope at 6 yrs old. I think it says a lot about him and his family that he's doing this. I have a sneaking suspicion after Mr. Gaiman's little plug that Jack is going to have to hire help. I had a look through his drawings so far, and I sent him a couple of pounds (they're using a verified online charity site, not a personal account). I felt like sharing the email I sent too, just because it was fun to write, and while I usually keep my support local, I believe strongly that hospitals everywhere providing free care need everything they can get. (You all know I'd not be here without them). If this little guy gets the idea now how important his work is, what do you imagine he may accomplish through the rest of his life?

---

Hello, Jack!

A very nice writer named Neil Gaiman uses the Twitter service on the Internet, and he heard about you doing drawings to raise money for Sick Kids Hospital. Mr. Gaiman has over 1 million people who follow him on Twitter because they like what he writes, and he told them ALL about you! That is how I heard about you. I think you've come up with a wonderful project to support a great cause. I work for a company that writes computer software to make XRay pictures easy to read and store and share so all the doctors can see them really really well and use them to help make sick kids better, so there's a lot I like about giving money to hospitals. I was also really really sick once and almost died, and a good hospital like yours but in Canada helped me a great deal which is why I didn't die.

I don't live in the UK so I usually give money to my own hospital, but I have visited Edinburgh and thought it was great there. I liked your project so much I sent a bit of money to you for Sick Kids.

If you get a chance, I wonder if you could draw my Siamese cats for me? Siamese cats have a special sort of colour. They're pale-beige coloured but have dark gray or black noses, ears, tails and feet, and they have very very bright blue eyes. I have two of these kind of cats, named Blue and Sudo. Blue is a "blue point" which means she is pale gray coloured and dark gray on her ears, nose, feet and tail and Sudo is called a Seal point which means he is light brown with black ears, nose, feet and tail.

I think you are going to be very very busy with all the drawing. I understand you still have to go to school and eat your meals and sleep and I bet your parents have some chores for you to help with, so I completely understand if you can't do this drawing for a long time. That's OK. Keep up the great work!

Sincerely,
Johanna B
From Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

Gadgety!

Check it out!

That there armbanded gizmo is my new pancreas! We went on-line at 10 this morning. I'm still trying to think up a name for it.

It's the Minimed Paradigm VEO insulin pump w/CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitoring) capability. I'm not using the CGM yet, as the protocol commonly seems to be get the pump started, and test, test, test, then start the sensor to do all the in-between metering.

So far today we've dealt with the abrupt cessation of background insulin, a delayed first meal, followed by a somewhat substantial brunch for that first meal, a late lunch, an RPM workout, and then a carby pasta dinner and a Valentine treat (I don't have the results for that one yet, waiting for my post-meal-test alert still). My early suspicion is that at least my meal dosage will need to increase, as I suspect the diabetes team was a bit conservative in my dosages. No hypos, though, and the highs weren't crazy-bad-high, but were double-digits.

It's going to be a little bit to get used to. The nurse who did my boot-up this morning mentioned a few things that hadn't occurred to me... like going to the bathroom when you have a pump clipped to your pants but the infusion set stuck into your upper belly can require a bit of juggling - the tubing's only 23 inches. Ooops. And apparently doorknobs are a known hazard. As are pets who chew on things they find lying in the bed when you're asleep, like plastic tubing. Sudo doesn't typically chew, but Blue lately has decided she likes chewing on the odd elastic-like thing she finds. Sudo does, though, pick things up and carry them off. He already did that with the plastic cap from the insertion set. I can see I am going to have to organize, inventory, and lock up the heap of supplies I'll now need for this thing.

I survived my first gym workout, without anything coming unglued or falling off me, and without any hypo reactions though I did drop from 8 something to 4-something over the hour workout. I happened to grab a shirt that had an MP3 player pocket which held the pump at my shoulder - nice! Except it's only one shirt and I need 4-5 workout shirts a week and none of my branded ones (I try to wear the team colour for teaching) have that pocket. So, accessories on the list to try are a runner's race number belt which has a small zippered pouch, and some elastic armbands such as the one in the picture above. If those all fail, apparently I can buy a sports harness for it that goes over the shoulders and holds the pump mid-back, under a shirt.

That's day 1 so far. Tomorrow we resume normal workday activities after a morning doctor visit, and then Wednesday is a full day - work then gym.

I'm off now to figure out how to turn off all the middle of the night beepy things so as not to wake spouse when I have to get up and test at 3 am. There will, I hope, only be a few days of THAT to deal with, or I'll be punchy from the lack of sleep. More pump adventures soon!

Why do I care? Why do you?

I was scolded last week for caring more about anonymous strangers on another continent than loved ones closed to home. Never mind by whom or context - not important. I feel it is important to point out that it's not true - I care a great deal about my friends & family, more than I do for "strangers" absolutely. But I don't see a measure of care as some finite resource I can only dole out so far nor does it have a fixed depth or quality. So, I DO care to a point about people I "don't know", and I'm rather engaged in what's going on around the world. I think the accusation came from someone else's own anxieties being projected on where my head was at the time. Like I said, context not that important. But the remark made me think, and led to this post. Why, exactly, do I care? Why do I feel that engagement?

I don't need to reiterate what's going on in Egypt. Turn on the news, open the Twitter feed, just listen - many better qualified than I to report and analyse the facts are doing so. I'm writing about why I feel something about it. On one level, the answer is, I care for the same reason I cared about Tienanmen Square, about Iran last year, about Haiti a year after the earthquake, about the ongoing struggles Afghanistan is having. That, I suppose, is just analogy, not reason. I think I care because I find it horrifying and appalling to think that in a world that should offer some basic securities to everyone that power-hungry abusers masquerading as "government" or fancying themselves some other entitled sort can still assault, abuse, torment and even murder their own citizens. And I find it relieving, exciting, and hopeful to see citizens claiming, reclaiming, reforming and recreating their democracies. So watching those two things happen in rapid alternation in Egypt draws me in to a bit of an emotional yo-yo.

Still, at the risk of sounding like a pesky toddler, my detached self-assessor brain looks back and me and says "Yeah, but WHY?". I think I have a few underlying reasons.

I like to think - hope -I'm at least somewhat empathetic, and I can be imaginative, not always in a good way. Honestly, watching and hearing about other people being hurt in a fight for something they (and I) believe is right, is distressing. It's human to try to put such stories into one's own context, so one absorbs a bit of it. I'm not sure I'd want to NOT be that way. I think it's better than not feeling anything at all over the conditions other humans are in when they're hurting. I'm not sure I'd be a good neighbour or fellow citizen if I didn't feel distressed at someone else's hurt, risk, and struggle for a value I also hold.

It also makes me think a bit about the family culture I grew up in and some awareness I think was ingrained in me from that. Growing up, I was the 3rd of 3 generations which included not-too-far removed relatives who served in military roles. I had great-uncles who served in WWII, my father was a US serviceman during the Vietnam years, an uncle has made a long and distinguished career with the Canadian Armed Forces and NATO. Another uncle travelled overseas to sometimes challenging areas as a foreign service worker. At least two cousins have seen military service in peacekeeping missions, one in Afghanistan. Though I've not had deep conversations with them on their experiences, I think I grew up knowing that my family in general valued democracy and freedom and included people who would travel far to fight for it or foster it. I also absorbed an awareness that those near and dear could still be very far away, and in dangerous places - as are many Canadians, and friends and families of Canadians, in Egypt right now. So it doesn't always feel like I care "about strangers". Someone over there could be someone I went to school with, could be a colleague, could be a friend of a friend or an acquaintance of a relative. Someone over there is fighting for much the same reason that soldiers fought in World Wars, fought Nazis, fought other despots and abusers, and I guess a small part of me feels I want to stand up for those values and feels a little helpless that I can just watch and listen and ... care.

I think a final reason that I care is that watching the collective citizenship of another country rise up to claim or reclaim their democracy makes me wonder, and want to analyze what goes on in my own version of that concept. Please spare me any comments along the lines of Canada has it so good, I should just shut up. I'm living right now with a government the behaviour of which has been concerning in its abuses of some of our processes for the partisan purposes of the minority government rather than the best interest of its citizens. I am privileged that I don't have to worry about the Prime Minister's personal police squad kicking down my door in the night. This does not mean I have no concern when a minority government concentrates police powers and supports them in using anonymity and brutal tools to assault protesters at the G20. This does not mean I have no care when policy decisions are made that are against the best interests of the most disadvantaged citizens. I think to see how far a citizen of another country has to go to claim what a Canadian takes to be a self-evident right makes me care more for the state of our own democracy and more that we do what we can and what we need to assure it is maintained. So, really, caring about "strangers" "far away" comes from caring about the nearest and dearest here at home, as well.

It's not the destination, it's the journey....

... in so many ways.

No secret that I have some wellness challenges. Diabetes, and a weird form of it no less, for one. My BMI (eg, my "weight") has been high - all my post-adolescent life. Even when I was smaller and fitter than I am now, I was "overweight" according to "the charts". Adding to things, as I age, I'm starting to show the signs of some familial glitches that come up in my ancestry - the aches and pains of osteoarthritis, a tendency to "put my neck out" way too easily, sleep problems that lead to chronic pain and a vague diagnosis of "fibromyalgia", and oddly disturbing possible autoimmune problems. I'm adding signs of insulin resistance to the fact that I'm insulin deficient - making me a rarer (but slowly growing) breed of diabetic who is both Type 1 and Type 2 at once.

It's really tempting to just write myself off and sit around and take painkillers. Admittedly, right now I just popped a Robax or I won't get through my day to my 2nd workout.

Yep, that's the point - my 2nd workout. I also teach fitness classes, and some pretty tough ones at times. This week, being release week at GoodLife, I have a heck of a week. 6 workouts between this morning and Thursday evening, though some will be lighter than others. I went this morning to catch some of my superstar colleagues kicking off the new release before I have to team up with a buddy for it tomorrow. Tonight and Wednesday, I teach my own class of the current program before premiering the new one. It can be tough - working out hurts sometimes. But I find not working out hurts worse, quickly, so I try to ride that line between just enough and not too much.

I got a little boost to my determination today, as I ran into a morning class (always a challenge) with an increasingly spasmed shoulder (always inconvenient) and worsening headache. I caught the eye of a member at the gym, and got a big smile.

This lady must've been 75 years old, at least. Maybe older - when you're active and happy, it's hard for me to tell, people just look "older than me" or "younger than me". This woman was older, but who knows how much. She looked like a tiny, round, Russian granny. She was wearing a long, calico skirt. Big baggy socks. An oversized sweatshirt, and a kerchief tied over her head and under her chin. The outfit would have been completely appropriate standing out in the barnyard with a milking bucket. Except for one thing. She had bright, shiny, white crosstrainers on, and was doing a determined job of showing the treadmill who's boss. While I pounded away on my steel wheel in the bike studio, she marched along. She finished her hike after at least 45 mins, I think, and when I walked out of the studio, she'd switched to some of the circuit machinery and was gently but steadily working her shoulder, and chatting away with some other women in the club. It was beautiful to see, especially since this was at a co-ed club where women sometimes don't feel as welcome as in womens-only facilities.

I couldn't stop smiling and had to share why with my colleagues working the desk - they were grinning as well. What an inspiration for everyone.

I hope I've got that kind of life in me at that age, and I hope I can keep in mind why I do this. I'm not elite, and never will be. I'll probably not see a single-digit clothing size, ever. It's not about my weight or my BMI. It's being able to keep my feet under me, and my legs steady, lift my own loads and keep some of those other, more important numbers (glucose, cholesterol, blood pressure) back where they should be. The goal is not the goal. The goal is about keeping going. It's the journey.

Resolutions... or Not.

I'm not that keen on "New Year's Resolutions". Really, just trying to cope with the everyday is sometimes enough. I'm ALWAYS trying to get to some goal, so really, all I'd "resolve" to do is... keep at it.

However, 2010 became rather disorganized, probably due to my divided attention, in the fibre arts aspects of life, so I'm aiming, in 2011, to at least get some stuff done and off the WIP or work-in-progress list. So, in lieu of "resolutions", I hereby publicly list the articles begun in 2010 (or maybe earlier, in 1 or 2 cases) that need to get finished.

1. Wisteria

This will likely be done first. A sweater pattern I was coveting was gifted to me at Xmas 2009, and I dug up the yarn and started work last summer.

2. More Monsters

I don't know if this is really a "WIP" or just an ongoing habit, but my current walking-around project is just more and more sock monsters. Here's the latest on-the-go:

Here's the finished look:

3. Sea Tangles

Hoping to get this done for a spring/summer pullover. Stainless Steel yarn - fun.

4. Montgolfiere

Overdue socks, originally thought to be for Adam but they're too small - for Dad.

Yes, they appear to be two different colours. The yarn has long colour changes in it, they're done in the same yarn - different spots.

5. Dark Earth, Night Sky - my variant on the Hanami Stole (Ravelry needed for that link).

6. I really need some fingerless gloves to go with the mitten tops I finished a while back (if I can find the mitten tops).

7. Progressive Sock Party

I've pretty much given up on Ravelry Sockdown! accomplishments, but hope I can still get these done. I'll be taking them along for my stranded knitting demo at guild next week.

Doubtless there are number more - some have been WIPs so long they're in the permanent snooze pile. I will work on blog updates as they finish, so I guess I can add that to my "resolutions" or not - more finished objects, and more blog posts. Here's to trying.

Catch-Ups

Yikes, almost two months. Twitter usage has really cut down on my feeling like I NEED to blog, somehow, but there's bits that just don't fit into 140 chars.

Today, however, we may just have a point-form summary.

Casa del Meezer is recovering from the loss of Sprout!. Senior Ms. Meezer Blue and Junior Special Ops Troublemaker Sudo have mostly renegotiated the household rankings. It's quite funny to watch at times. There's a daily wrestling match sandwiched in between evening snuggle-fests, and the food bowls are still a performance every time.

Husband and I took a vacation which I guess qualifies as a delayed honeymoon, and joined Jane Thornley's Knitaly 2010 tour of Firenze (Florence) and surrounding Tuscany, Italy. It was a trip both wonderfully decadant (Medieval Castle! Superior dining!) and very much about exploring the art, history, and current culture of the region, visiting not just galleries and "tourist stops" but a working cashmere farm, out-of-the-way shops in unassuming little towns, working wineries, etc. Definitely an unforgettable experience.

My only beef was with the virus I picked up towards the end of the trip, that knocked me for a loop for most of a month.

If you'd like to see the photo expo on the travels, I HAVE now downloaded my camera but not really put together anything - so go look at my dearly beloved's much superior photo gallery. Click on Wanderings and Explorings, Italy 2010. I hope to post my own soon, redundant though that may be.

On the arts part of arts'n'cats - while still straggling with my academic assignments, I got some time in and loaded some new (and some re-loaded) goodies into the Etsy store over there on the right. Still to be photographed are some more yummy BFL braids, some gorgeous reds & purples in Merino-seacell fibre, and a dozen or so fall/winter yarns. I think I feel another dye day coming on soon, as well, so there will be more! As always - if you're local to Waterloo, contact me before buying & we'll take the deal off line.

That's the update for now - lunch is done, back to work.

Bye-bye, Babykat

Da Sprout! at about 5 years of age, 2002

All Photos by Adam Benjamin

T'was not the happiest weekend at Casa del Meezer. Long story short, Sprout! has now departed this world. Her longstanding heart condition was not staying stable despite treatment. It had probably been going on for a while, but kidney failure was noted to have manifested last week. Our wonderful Dr. Bonnie, who I swear has been able to resurrect roadkill at times, had to break the hard news that there was nothing to be done. The treatment for one condition aggravates the other; the best thing was to keep her comfortable as long as she was content, for neither disease was acutely painful and as long as the congestive heart problems didn't restrict her breathing, she'd just decline gradually.

Unfortunately, gradually turned out to be only about 48 hours after diagnosis. There are various ways you know it's time for an animal-buddy to have a little help to pass on comfortably, and with cats, it's often when they refuse all food and water, and can't get to their litter. Sprout! was done with us on Saturday, and Dr. Bonnie was kind enough to come for a housecall late that evening, as her breathing began to be a struggle.

Losing Sprout! is an ending of a number of things. She's my last Guelph cat - adopted from the Guelph Humane Society as a dirty, nondescript looking kitten in 1997. She's the last cat who directly knew my first two cats, Lenny and Lucy, the ones that really set me on the Meezer-devoted path I've had for a while. She was my last pre-pancreatitis, pre-diabetes cat, my last "school" cat, the last cat who was "mine", having been with me a couple of years before I met Adam. While there's nothing wrong with my life now and I'm not sure I'd want to be back to my dingy student apartment where the litter box was bigger than my bathtub - it's a little sad to say goodbye to some of that nostalgia. Feels like I have to put away a piece of the past with my Babykat.

Sprout! was my only kitten (hence the Babykat) - all my other cats have been adults when they joined me. I've had her longer than any other (so far) as well - 13 years to the day, in fact. Her adoption day was October 2, 1997. We said goodbye October 2, 2010.

Disapproving Rabbit Face

One of our latest portraits of her, 2007.

Gratuitous Cat Post

It's been while since there's been anyone furry on the blog.  Here's a couple recent shots:

Sudo

 Yeah, he always sits like that.  Pretty boy, likes to pose. 

Snuggly Meezers

Sorry for the low-light graininess there - it's impossible get a direct flash photo of these guys with the point and shoot and still see the blue eyes.  Blue and Sudo mostly get along. Sprout!'s still not sure she likes the upstart, but Blue is at least resigned to him. She'll put up with snuggling, but then he forgets not to strangle her and a little fuss breaks out sometimes.

Not much else exciting for this blog - some fibre announcements going up on the other.

My Wee Patio Produce Farm - Update

So, remember the photo from last month?

Not only have I not killed my plants, they seem to be doing well.  here's some mid-June progress:

at which time I spotted this wee proto-cucumber.

As of yesterday, I have harvested my first veggie!

Apparently cucumbers are prolific and early veggies.  I did not know!  By the looks of it, there's much more where that came from.

There's a bona fide veggie jungle on my patio.  At least 3 cucumbers of a similar size, 2 fully formed and many more blossoming Black Cherry tomato clusters just needing to ripen, at least two Black Krim are growing, a proto-cantelope has been spotted in the mix, and overall, the plants are now all taller than I am despite pruning!  Not showing are two upside-down planters, one with a Roma tomato beginning to fruit, and one with the transplanted pepper plant which was rescued from the clutches of the cucumber and cantelope vines (which may still be strangling the eggplant).

Now, here's a question for the more experienced gardeners - I have two more self-watering pots, purchased, about 14" diameter round ones.  Is there anything I can still plant at this point that will have enough season left to grow?  I was aiming for a potato but darned if I could find a sprouted one to start with, and the ones from the store don't sprout anymore.

Think Globally, Eat Locally....

.... and, well, my own patio is pretty local.

Over the years, we've made some attempts to be more environmentally conscious, eco-conscious, socially conscious... with varying degrees of success. It's challenging to live in an urban, time-clock-punching, online-scheduling world and make "slow food" at every meal after bicycling all over the county to pick up the groceries from local farmers. In an effort to stay a bit healthier, I drive to the gym. I have to rush to get to yoga class while leaving conference calls on hold. I feel distinctly polarized about how my life goes, most days.

Some things I've really wanted to get into haven't worked that well. CSAs, for one. Great IDEA, to have a locally-grown farm food box - but buying a "share", even shared with two other couples, turned out to be very wasteful, as we got weekly crateloads of whatever was harvested that week - which tended to be low on variety, high on quantity and required a lot of preparation to become useful food. Sometimes we had a ton of wholesome stuff we outright didn't eat, like beets by the dozen. It did lead us to discover what a kohlrabi was, and how to prepare garlic scapes, so that might not have been a total write-off.

Slightly more successfull was the Pfenning's Organic venture - they deliver weekly boxes, large or small choice, and you can order or not every week based on whether you like what's in them, and make one or two substitutions. Still though - likely to get something not appealing to everyone, and the delivery actually was a bit awkward for a household where all members are out at an office during delivery hours.

I've now found something I'm hoping will pan out a bit better - I've been introduced to the idea of a Local Food Buying Club. Bailey's Local Foods is a small business run by two Waterloo Women (supported by staff of family and friends) which operates just down the corner from me in a church. A $20 annual membership gets you access to their online ordering system, from which you can build your own grocery box every week. Incredibly flexible - order, or don't, exactly what you want and how much you want. Options include locally made baked goods, meats, minimally processed prepared foods, if not completely grown within 100 kms then at least largely produced that close. Much is organic, and when not, it's clearly labelled as to if or how it's treated or raised.

So far it's going very well. Tonight's dinner was Pumpkin Ravioli over which we spooned African Peanut Stew instead of sauce. And I've trained myself to eat tomatoes, something I've never liked that much, when they're fresh vine-ripened and layered with fresh basil, local bocconcini, some cucumbers and balsamic vinaigrette. I accidentally over-ordered asparagus, so that will be on this week's menu. The next treat coming up are the Ontario strawberries, which I suspect this operation will be completely cleaned out of every week.

To this whole venture, I'm adding even-closer-to-home food. Check out my patio:

Those are my hackabout, home-made version of "Earth Boxes".  As an aside, now that I know how to build them and HAVE built them, I will be happy to buy the equivalent, but these will do.  In the one on the left are two tomato plants (Black Krim and Black Cherry, both heirloom varieties), two basil sprigs and some lettuce seeds.  On the right, one cucumber, one cantelope, one eggplant, one Chocolate Sweet Pepper, and a smattering of pea plants sprouting at the front.

I got the tomatoes and the pepper from a seedling sale at Little City Farm in Kitchener, another local family business.  Unfortunately, the sale was so popular, I got there the minute it was announced to be opening and it was half sold out!  It was also so crowded I couldn't get to half of it. So, the cukes, melon, and eggplant came from Home Depot's nursery centre, and the peas from Ontario Seed Co. seeds.

The idea with these boxes is they are self-watering, from a reservoir below the soil bin, and with good potting mix and fertilizer, you can grow a high density of plants in relatively little space.  We shall see.  But things are starting already:

Those there are the first buds on the Black Cherry tomato. And below:

That wee flower bud is supposed to grow up to be a cantelope!  

I'm not quite certain how this whole venture will play out, but am encouraged so far by the fact that the tomatoes are 18 inches high after a couple of weeks, and the cucumber is already climbing both tomato cages in its bin, and there are flowers out at the beginning of June.  I did manage to keep a conventionally potted cherry tomato alive and producing a couple of summers ago, so here's hoping.  If these work out, I may try a few more bins next year. While it may not be possible to run an off-the-grid urban farmstead in an uptown condo, at least I can grow myself a salad, and by making other local choices, contribute to the success of some local businesses that are working to see sustainable food happen neighbourhood by neighbourhood.

A Catch-up blog

Well, it's been a while then. Amazing how planning ONE little party, and then dealing with its aftermath, can totally suck one's life away. I've dropped a whole bunch of projects, gotten behind in correspondence, exercise, looking after myself, and of course blogging.

I'm hoping this'll be a sign of getting back to normality!

So, well, as you might have caught, I'm all married up now. Just dealing with the credit card bills and follow-up tasks like catching up with our photographer, and our "registries" with a couple of artisans. The whole thing still seems a bit strange to me, weirder still that I keep getting asked "so how's married life?". Really, as someone who has personally been committed to a good relationship for a decade - it was a fun party, but life wasn't any different the day after than the day before. We wanted to do this for a family event, and that's what it was, but I feel like I'm missing something in that everyone keeps asking me these questions like there's some grand expectation that I've had a huge transformative epiphany, when really, I threw a party and I have to clean up after it. Not sure what to make of that. Sorry I seem to be disappointing everyone with my pragmatism.

In other news, honeymoon didn't happen, plotting on an alternate plan still in the vicinity of the Mediterranean, still trying to clean the condo up, and I've (with lots of help from A.) build and filled two self-watering planters to try and grow a few tomatoes and things. Will see how those go.

Still one project to catch up on for OHS spinning school, but this weekend, I'm off to my first fibre-vending event of the year which, I hope, will get me back on track with a little bit of textile income to legitimized myself as a spinner/dyer. I'll be at the Halton Waldorf School's "Mayfair" event, a fundraiser and open house day for the school, which my niece attends. No idea how productive it will really be for me business-wise, but it's a chance to demo and promote hand-arts to kids, which is always great. Maybe I'll see some people there, Sunday 12-4.

Bridal Ranting, by Proxy

Hi all. So, the lack of blogging has been due to the fact that I've stupidly added a wedding, of the express-planning variety, to my "to do" list since early February. It's going well, if by well one could mean there's no dress yet, my shawl is only 80% done, but we do have a paid contract with an officiant, so the signatures will happen and a legal marriage will result - I may just be wearing jeans and our Best Man might too, as the bridal shop lost his measurements. We'll coordinate our t-shirts.

In trying to go with "informal" and "low key", I meant to go with only one attendant each, but that expanded to two as I couldn't bring myself to flip a coin between my sister and my might-as-well-be-a-sister best friend, so I have two bridesmaids. In theory, we all have purchased dresses, and while I left it to the two of them what they want to wear, they kaiboshed my "alternative" wedding idea by actually agreeing on colour, fabric, AND style for their own dresses.

So, based on that last sentence, you have to read the following realizing that my sister draws on those around her for her material, but may be fictionalizing details for humour's sake - her dress is NOT my fault. Other than the short timeline leaving its arrival in question, that was my fault. Actually, it looks quite good on her and on her co-conspiritor-of-honour, I'm more confident of that than I am of mine looking good on me. Here you go, a transcription of Sissy's rant from her stand-up gig last week at Rebel's Rock.

---

Last time I was here, I talked about how I'd been out of comedy for a bit, recovering from the shock of getting married, (12 years) and it got me thinking about marriage, and what makes a marriage. Kind of dumb considering how hard it is to get OUT of one that all it takes is one day to get into one. You stand up and make an ass of yourself in front of friends and family in some godawful white merrangue that makes you look just like your wedding cake, some dude talks, you sign your name and bang, you're married.

Even doing like our friend Kerba did- shack up, lose track of time and let the government declare you married so they can screw you that much harder come tax time, seems pretty simplistic.

I think either of those things are the beginning of getting married, but they're really just the start of BECOMING married. Becoming married is the part that happens slowly, like, over years, long after the wedding guests have stopped even sending your Christmas cards. Marriage happens one fight over your monster-in-law's insults, one pre-colonoscopy enema, one exploded bathtub at a time. At least, those were some of the milestones in our house...

You change gradually, bit by bit from getting married to BEING married.

When you're a new bride, for example, you go through this nauseating period where you practice signing your married name on everything, even if you've just become the new Mrs. Lipschitz. You flash the ring like you're the frickin' green lantern and you keep a house that would make Martha Stewart want to throw herself off a bridge in shame instead of the other way around for a change. But over time, you change.

By the time you're ten years in, and own grown up shit like a minivan and a dishwasher, you've figured out that if you add a glass of milk, technically a peanut butter and banana sandwich covers all four food groups, and is therefore an acceptable Sunday dinner. You've gone from being mortally embarrassed that your mother in law found a pubic hair in your bathroom cup to secretly being pretty proud of yourself in a slightly perverted way when shit like that happens.

In the early days of being a new bride, I remember slipping quietly out of bed in the earliest, gray hours of morning just to brush my teeth and comb my hair so I could slip back into bed, and my new husband could see me wake up beautiful every morning.

These days its more like trying to stay awake just a few minutes longer than him at night just so I can fart and shove his head under the covers. ('If you love me breathe deeply!')

And one day it hits you, you're not just becoming married anymore, you ARE married.

I had one of those epiphany moments a couple of weeks back, the dawning that your partner knows you better than anyone else on earth...you see, he was at work, and I was waxing my legs...

Sorry, I know some of you are eating

Ok, I'll back up a little first...over the years of our marriage, we've collected some pretty strange things, and among them would be our two cats. The first one, the big one, is very low maintenance. I'm not sure she's even moved off the living room chair since my son was born. I vacuum her once a week, that's how mellow she is. But my other cat was born under my desk three jobs and seven years ago. I bottle fed him from three days old, and he's totally imprinted on me. He follows me around the house like he's on a string. It sounds sweet, but any woman who's ever tried to put mascara on with a cat butt right in her grill knows why this isn't as cute as it sounds...

So waxing my legs. Shuttup, the weather's getting nice, you'd be more grossed out if I didn't...

Had all the cold wax strips laid out neatly on the counter, sticky side up, when cat couldn't bear to be apart from me for one second longer and did that sit on the counter and purr so hard he drools thing, got up to give me the tail to scratch and....aaaahhh! Thing on my butt! Thing on my butt!

And all hell broke loose. Terrified cat with two sticky cold wax strips tearing through the house, and it's old married housekeeping in our house, not newlywed housekeeping, so the more he runs, the more stuff sticks to the mess on his butt, he's picking up dust bunnies, action figures, goldfish crackers (because for some reason there are always goldfish crackers on the floor in the dark corners of my house) and he'd getting more and more terrified the more he runs. I finally trapped him in the downstairs fridge. But the 'yep we're married' moment came when I called sweet hubby to tell him what happened. You see when you've been married long enough, you sometimes forget to explain things in the detail that you should, because you assume your partner already knows everything you know. My husband, bless him, didn't miss a single beat when I phoned him at work to tell him he had to stop at the pharmacy to buy calendula oil on the way home because I'd inadvertantly waxed the wrong pussy.

On the subject of marriage, since I saw you last, my sister has decided to finally get married to her long time spousal euphemism, and I guess I didn't wreck enough of her stuff when we were kids, because I'm still on the hook for being a bridesmaid. To make matters worse, she's set the wedding date for April 25 of THIS year. Actually, I think being a bridesmaid is something we inflict on those girlfriends who have managed to really piss us off over the years, because there's a lot of sucky things about being a bridesmaid. You have to stay sober, at least until its all legal apparently, and you get assignments, like wrangling emotionally incontinent relatives so the bride can freak out in peace. This is my assignment, and I'm the exactly wrong person for the job. My approach to the emotional incontinence of others tends to involve things like chloroform and broom closets, but because I love my sister, just this once, I'll do as I'm asked. But I still get to bitch about the dresses.

Now, everyone already knows that the whole point of the bridesmaid's dresses is to make the bride look good, but when you're built like a hobbit, or, let's be honest, when you're built like TWO hobbits standing very close together, you'd rather be stuck in a revolving door with a spear through your head than be stuck in a dress shop filled with size 8 samples and a snotty salesclerk telling you that with less than 8 weeks to go you're not going to be able to order anything in time, so you'll just have to buy off the rack. Now the other bridesmaid is the same size as me, technically, she's just a foot taller, but neither one of us is exactly 'off the rack' material. So the selection was ultimately made by asking the snotty salesclerk to bring out everything in the store that would also fit nicely over a Xerox machine and we narrowed it down from there. So black chiffon it is. People say black is slimming, but unless it's very, very dark, there's only so much camouflage you can count on, even from black. Our helpful sales clerk also whispered to me like she was sharing some of the ancient lore of skinny folks that there was this helpful exercise you could do, to help slim your butt and hips. Apparently if you sit on the floor with your legs in front of you and 'walk' on your butt, over time, this is supposed to lend itself to a firmer, trimmer derriere. Again, I'm not perfect, but I'm pretty self aware. With a butt like a park bench, how far do you think I'd have to go? Let's see, I live in Burlington, the wedding's in Waterloo in four weeks, if I leave tonight and butt-walk the entire way there, me and my slim new tush might just make it! If you have cause to head in that direction before the end of the month and you see me scootching up Highway 6, show your support, honk and wave. They guy next to me driving the world's slowest pace car will be my husband....

But I digress, it's a done deal. Black chiffon for an April morning wedding! So get your cameras ready, 'cause on April 25 I'll be the one plowing up the aisle looking like a pygmy gothapotamus in full sail. /endbigfatjewishathiestweddingbit

---

Well, the news is out....

So after 10 + years together, the erstwhile spouse and I are going legal.

Our "Wedding Window" site.

I have no idea how much time/energy I'll have to blog, as what I do have may be going into the wedding project as well as my handspinning projects. And teaching. And knitting a shawl. And O M G whatamIthinkinghowcanIpossiblyhavetimeforthis?

10 years together, 10 weeks to plan the wedding.

Some things are important....

I've been seething and stewing and writing then discarding various rants over the Prorogue. Short version: Affront to democracy. Disgusted that it still seems many Canadians including our PM don't have a grasp of 9th grade social studies as to how the Parliament and Government of Canada work. And yes, Mister PM - CANADIANS CARE.

Something a little more critical is afoot in the world, though, as of yesterday, when the devastatingly poor nation of Haiti was struck by a massive earthquake. At least Canada has the capacity to do something right and has a team on the way to precede the DART team, which I sincerely hope will not be delayed.

I'll refer the reader wondering "what can we do"? to any or all of the following resources:

The Yarn Harlot is rallying Knitters in support of MSF, which has already been very active in Haiti and sadly, is now worried about their own staff and volunteers as well as their patients in Port au Prince. Nonetheless, they've spent the night scrambling MORE teams to get there and help. I don't know if I have US/International readers, but their international site is here: MSF International and you don't have far to look for international links to donate for your country/region.

Other organizations which are on the move to this area:

OXFAM Canada and Oxfam International.

Red Cross Canada
or the Red Cross America both have aid campaigns underway.

I will repeat for you a plea that Stephanie Pearl-McPhee entered on her blog: Please donate if you can, but mark your donation for general "Disaster Relief" or "Greatest Needs" if possible, not for a specific country/region/event as much as that may be the need of the moment. Many aid organizations are bound to policies that prevent them from using funds donated to a specific campaign for other needs if the specific campaign is sufficiently addressed. This has left situations where disaster relief funds have gone un-used once order is re-established in a region, while other areas of the world are devastated but funds cannot be raised. Suffice to say, Haiti is a major campaign concern now for humanitarian aid, but lets not limit the reach of our concern or our funds for future benefit, either.

20 Years

December 6th, 1989 was a distressingly memorable day for me.

I was writing one of the first, or maybe it was even THE first, exam of my Engineering education at Guelph. Guelph was a small-ish engineering faculty, around 300 students total at that time, with less than 100 in my first year. Proportionately, however, we had a dubious claim to fame. 23% of the students in my year were women - a record proportion for any first year engineering class in the country.

Revved up on caffeine and nerves from our very first end-of-term finals, I recall that we walked out of the gymnasium where we sat our exam, to find most of our faculty and many senior and graduate students waiting to meet us - seemed oddly personal to be greeted by faculty at the end of the exam. Then we noticed the looks on the faces as they sort of rounded us up and told us the news about what had just happened at École Polytechnique in Montreal. I don't recall any particular reactions from anyone. We were all just sort of stunned, staring. I think there may have been offers to walk us back to our residences or the Engineering lounge together, wherever we needed to go, and information on how to get in touch with counselling services. I don't know if anyone ever used that.

As the next few days went by, white ribbons appeared on sleeves, vigils, memorials, and lots of quiet, personal talks and no doubt some tears happened. The news sunk in, some people realized they knew some of the women killed, or knew-someone-who-knew-someone, things like that. The Engineering student community is not huge, and there are provincial and national student engineering societies that networked among the schools. We for the most part got on with finishing our semester and exams and most were probably relieved to go home.

I remember being sad, the way I am to hear of anyone dying in horrid violence, and stressed and tired, but not particularly feeling a great deal of trauma or grief myself. But something about that day did thread through the rest of my education and my life since. Something very disturbing struck me that day - it was the first time in my life that it really sunk in that someone could really think women had no business - that I had no business - doing what we wished to do and being what we wished to be, merely because we were women. I had understood prejudice, sexism, racism, any-other-ism existed, intellectually, but that day it really hit me that there were people out there who somehow had their socialization so screwed up that they thought it right to hate and act out against other people just for being what they were.

December 6th has become a memorial, Canada-wide, not just to the 14 lost at École Polytechnique, but to all women hurt and killed in gender-motivated violence. Sadly, while the media spectacle of mass murder is rare, we don't seem to have made much progress. Just searching the days news can show examples of how behind we still are in ensuring gender equity in employment, social services, parenting, and just plain physical security of person. While I'm one of the empowered and have the ability to assure my own security in many ways, I am still very saddened by seeing examples all around me of the same continuum, of which the events of December 6th, 1989 were an extreme example.

It's sad. I remain at a loss for what to do, most of the time. I guess all I can say about it is always remember, speak up when you see not just violence but injustice and inequity, examine what you do and say, and help ensure that "Never Again" really is true.

Lest We Forget

Few Canadians need look very far to find among their family, friends and associates one who has served or does serve in our Armed Forces.

Today is for remembering those who have, literally in many cases, spent their lives in service of Canada and allies around the world, and also for thanking those who still make that commitment. Near home or far overseas, career or reserve, past or present, and year round, fellow Canadians are devoting their daily lives to the defense of Canada and global freedom.

Regardless of one's opinion on the political regime and machinations that drive our involvement in far conflicts, today is about the individual human lives committed in this service. Without them, Canadian citizens and others around the world would have very little of the comfort we enjoy today. Every one of them deserves the honour and thanks which November 11th represents.

Remembrance Day, by Jim Vallance and Bryan Adams. Lyrics and Jim's story are on this page. You can hear the whole song in the video, or download on iTunes.

In Flanders Fields, and the story of John McCrae.

Laura Chau's poppies 2009 page - Knit Poppy Pattern in exchange for donation to the Poppy Campaign.

CBC News today, including the numbering of soldiers lost in service through Canada's history.

Lest We Forget.

NaBloPoMo, huh?

I really don't think I'll be formally joining the NaBloPoMo, however, since I stand a better chance at that than I do at NaNoWriMo, I figured I'd start on a good note for November.

It's been a crazy spell, hence not much blogging. I've been working, knitting, looking in on my once-again-hospitalized Mom when I can, working out, and trying to return my out-of-control clutter to something livable.

I need to start noting my small accomplishments, if only to keep from feeling overwhelmed by the "I got nothing done again" doldrums. For, really, I do a lot - all the time. But I do the sort of things that are never "finished", like work, housework, cleaning, planning, shopping. It's hard to get a sense of accomplishment from laundry, as it continues to need doing no matter how much you do.

So, for today, I have:
- put the binding on a 2.5 year long quilt project
- reassembled a shelf into a more useful configuration
- vacuumed some months of dust out of corners
- listed some Etsy stuff! More to come!
- not to mention, lots of puttering and tidying, though you can't tell from my room

Enough for now. Bedtime!

WIPs and more!

Well, so much for any idea of blogging from Haliburton. Plus, I have no Mac just now, she had a little breakdown and is in therapy at the Mac doctor. Nothing major, no bad disks or all, just can't operate on battery power, and well, that's the whole point of a laptop, right?

So I spent a bit of time today working, doing homework, spinning, and catching up on Ravelry stash and project updates mainly to make myself feel like I organized something.

Oh, and I got a little funny treat in the mail. Two days ago I ordered a bag from LUG, a shamefully trendy product which does seem to manufacture an array of decent bags. I totally discovered them before I ever heard Oprah had, too, so it's not JUST because Oprah liked them. Anyway, I ordered a bag directly from them as I couldn't find the model/colour I wanted in any store. They had an online coupon, too, which made the price even with shipping better than buying retail. They seem to be a nice small company, Toronto-based or at least partly so, but their shipping is from Texas. While I was content to pay the shipping, having gotten the online discount code, my bag arrived in less than 48 hours, with this enclosed:



Goofy, but cute. It's a little gadget beanbag, and it had a signed note attached saying "we're very sorry about the high shipping cost, it's the nature of our FedEx system and we're working on it".

Oh, and just to prove I WAS in Haliburton - I went looking for the rusty fairy metal sculpture that overlooked our classroom windows all last year. She's gone. This is there instead:

I have, for the second year, failed to get a good picture of the front door of the college, which is a work of sculpture itself. I notice more details every time I look at it, but it is red on red, unfortunately, and looks just like a big red door when photographed (by me. I'm sure someone else can do better).

For now, back to reviewing and organizing, as I have until February to complete a huge amount of work, and only until Thanksgiving to cook up a large part of it.

The Sock Summit Wrap-up. An Open Letter

Dear Stephanie and Tina, and everyone involved in SS09:

I originally began a blog post about how wonderful my weekend at Sock Summit was, but it was eaten by an a abrupt drop of WiFi and a mis-tap on my iPod Touch after 2 hours work while waiting at the airport. As I didn't have enough time to re-type it and my next layover didn't include free WiFi, I decided instead to wait until I had made it home, to a proper keyboard, and could make a bit more sense.

I also thought I'd turn the post into a thank-you letter, though an open one to share on my blog. So, of course, I'm one of I'd guess hundreds who are concluding their Sock Summit with a direct letter and a huge THANK YOU to both of you, to all of ST-2, your staff, volunteers, supporters, families, teachers, luminaries – really, anyone and everyone who contributed.

I almost did not register, not out of any doubt that Sock Summit would be amazing but due to the logistic challenges and expense of travel. However, after the server crash and fix, when it became apparent that it would sell out by the next day, I jumped in and left cash and logistics to the fates, for later.

As you will guess from the fact that I'm writing, I made it. Every high expectation I had was thoroughly exceeded. As far as I'm concerned, “Summit” was the perfect title, as Thursday morning started high and things only went up from there. You managed to pull off an event that had the quality academic and technical presentations of some of best training I've ever attended in any subject, combined with the festival atmosphere of a weekend entertainment venue. Even though many of my “first” choices of class/workshop were full by the time I got online, every single teacher and presenter I saw put to shame all but the few best of teachers I've met in my life. Even the Marketplace was brilliant, filled with great, diverse, friendly and relevant artisans and businesses. It was easy to navigate and comfortably spacious (the odd manic rush to limited-availability items notwithstanding).

After my first Thursday morning hour I had learned two brilliant new things that I will immediately put to use. I added more to that before dinner. The two of you delivering your opening night talk were endearing and hilarious and your recitation of some of the telephone conversations you had to have could have worried Bob Newhart that his schtick wouldn't measure up. Between Friday morning and Saturday morning spinning workshops, my hand spindle work advanced more than in the past two years, and I finished spinning my first small amount of true, 3-ply SOCK yarn at the Ravelry party (though I had to borrow a friend and re-name her Kate for the plying job). I think I'm going to frame my swatch from the Guiness attempt. I sat at a lunch table with Lucy Neatby and made some flip comment about her hair, to which she laughed heartily before I could second guess my mouth enough to feel abashed.

I found out how to solve most of the problems with the socks I make for the man in my life, though there was no help for the size 13 feet. Anna Zilboorg's Turkish Stitches hour was the last of my classes Sunday morning, and I couldn't write fast enough to jot down all the ideas her brilliant talk through the folklore and culture that surrounded that style of work brought to mind.

The Luminary Panel was truly the peak of the weekend, and I was not the only person near tears listening to the humour and brilliance of all the speakers, including yourselves. I have to say, as someone who came to knitting after Elizabeth Zimmerman was gone, thinking of that and listening to the Panel guests, I had a really striking realization how important this whole weekend was. You two had brought together brilliant guests who are, truly, the Wise Women of our tribe. As is inevitable for our species, some of them may not be with us much longer, as much as we would all wish differently, and this may have been the last chance for them to reach out to us who are newer to this community of art and skill. Having sat through that, I realize what a way of passing the torch (needles?) you offered to all of us, teacher or Luminary and students alike. I now cannot comprehend how much would have been missed, unknowingly, by how many hundreds of us, had this event not happened. This effort quite literally knit together generations in art and community. I am amazed, grateful, humbled and priviledged to have been able to attend.

I hope that my future works may represent, in some small way, what came of your efforts on this event.

Most sincerely, thank you.
Johanna

Saturday At The Summit

The only fail today was the continuing irkedness at the PCC charging $13/ day for wireless ( which I am NOT paying, hence only tweeting/posting from hotel). I mean, come on, Burgerville has free WiFi and the airport is $5. Lots of fun today, though!

Started with a spinning painted roving class, and got going like Taz on my new teeny Jenkins.
Lunches with Shall We Knit, Oh Susannah (my roomies from New Hamburg) and LUCY NEATBY, who is lovely and who really impressed some Portland sk8rbois with her hair.
Asked poor RachelH if her arm had fused permanently to her clipboard yet.
Resisted many MORE marketplace purchases than I made, but did score an enchanted knoll batt.
Learned lots of neat stuff about guy sock knitting, including ideas for converting lace to guy friendly charts.
Unfortunately also learned I should adjust patterns to tighter gauge and more stitches per round which will mean it takes even more knitting for size 13 feet. Seriously considered trading Adam to another knitter for a spouse with size 7s. But just for a moment.
Found my own way home on the MAX, only got lost by 1 block and I unlost myself fairly promptly.
RAVELRY!!!!! Was there in time for loverly Swag Bag, MH recognizes me now.
Finished spinning my singles AND plied a tiny ball of Real 3-ply Sock Yarn!!!! My first sock yarn and
my first 3-ply yarn.
Duelled spindles with another new Jenkins owner while we wandered the crowd.
Amy Singer herself personally placed one of her new Knitty promo buttons in my hand!
Tried an Oregon variant of poutine. Here, apparently, the fries go on top of the cheese. No idea why.
Tried organic local Pinot Noir. Very nice.
Knitters leaving Rav party commandeered half a MAX train. Like the TTC knitalong but ALL socks!
Off to catch a bit of snooze-just about 24 Hours left on the ground here.