December 2015

December 2015

I am writing out Christmas Cards and reflecting on the reason we do this in an age of instant communication via email and Facebook.  We often don't reflect enough or think about the relationship between an action and its consequence.  Sending out Christmas cards seems to be redundant when you can just do a mass MERRY CHRISTMAS on Facebook and be done with it. Though inevitability even that starts a debate on what is the "Real Meaning Of Christmas".  It requires very little thought or effort. Two things there is a dearth of these days. People are so invested in how others behave, yet give very little thought to their own behavior.

December is the time of the year when the nights are longest and the days are gloomy and short (unless you live down under or at the equator).   The point being that there is a rhythm to the seasons and we have forgotten how to live in balance to the heartbeat of the world.  This is a time of slowing down and doing the deep work.  I have always thought of the winter solstice as the true "New Year". We have completed one full cycle of shortest day to shortest day.  On the winter solstice we will begin to move back into the light and we could sure use some light in this world right now. I have a friend who is an author and I am reading her next book/manuscript and I can feel her anger in what we have done to the oceans, each other, and how our disregard for the consequences of our actions causes such great harm to the world and the creatures we share it with.  Her characters are fictional, the damage to the orca whales and the oceans in her story are real.

We, as a species, have created much harm to ourselves and the world around us.  I think it is time to do the deep work, to slow down, to listen to the heart beat of the world and remember that everything we do has a consequence in the real world.  Hate and the energy of hate just creates more in the world.  How we live and how we conduct ourselves does matter and like a pebble in a pond it ripples out to influence everything around us.  We need to stop ignoring what we don't want to see or what makes us uncomfortable.  It is time to begin a new cycle and to be a light in the world and to question those who want us to live in darkness and a world of hate.

A Bad Case of Pink Elephants

Pink Elephants

There is a huge problem in trying to manage pain in a profoundly demented and deaf patient.  I had seen a functional decline in Dad within the couple of weeks before the diagnosis of cancer.  With the addition of pain medications the functional decline was even worse.  Bone Cancer is unbelievably painful.  Dad has always been pain tough, but clearly the bone cancer is tougher.  He has gone from taking no pain meds to taking ms oxycodone, liquid hydrocodone, and liquid fast acting morphine for break through pain.   Dad occasionally  took a little Advil or Tylenol for a thumb that got a little sore when he went bowling.  At 81 he was hiking Hadrian's Wall with Jon and me in Northumberland.  He was never infirm or arthritis ridden.  Now he is cancer ridden and taking the big boys of pain management.

Hadrian's Wall

Which brings us to a bad case of Pink Elephants.  I was called to the facility night before last at 10:30 pm "because your dad is in pain and I think you need to give him some morphine".  Because the morphine is liquid and has to be given in the mouth by syringe either a nurse or a family member must give it;  a Med Tech can't.  Nurses in the facility are only available by day.  A hospice nurse could have come out to administer the medication, but I live a minute away and the hospice nurse was probably one to two hours out from arriving.  So I went.

Dad was sitting in a wheelchair with an attendant.  He was wearing nothing but a pair of depends with a thin white blanket over his lap which I watched him pull off a few moments later.  He doesn't recognize me and the attendant says he is clearly delusional and keeps talking about having to go to the basement or up two flights of stairs.  It takes me only a moment to see that for myself.  So I go and put on gloves (this particular morphine will go right through your skin, which might be fun under other circumstances) and draw up .25ml and walk back down the hall to dad.  But this isn't feeling or looking like pain to me.  He won't tolerate anything on his skin, neither the very light blanket or the hospital gown they tried to drape him with.  He is not reaching for his shoulder and his hands and skin are hot to the touch, but it doesn't seem to be fever induced.   I decide this isn't a need for more pain meds, this is a case of too much medication.  Back to the medication room and a call to Hospice to consult.

Dad received no more pain meds that night, was watched carefully and tended to compassionately while his system cleared the drugs from his system.  Tomorrow would be a new day and a new consultation to try and find a protocol that would manage the pain without a bad case of Pink Elephants.  No one said midwifing the dying was easy.

The Game Has Changed

As you may already know my dad has dementia and since October of last year has been living in a Memory Care Facility when it became difficult to care for him in his own home and actually dangerous since he had begun to wander at night.

Last Wednesday evening I found myself in the ER with my dad who was complaining of shoulder pain.  Well, actually it was more like this:

Me:  "Dad does your shoulder hurt?"

Dad:  "I don't know where she went."

Then a grimace, reach for his shoulder and exclamation of  "Oh Shit".

I call that complaining of shoulder pain.  His shoulder was also beginning to show signs of swelling.  It did not appear to be a dislocation and because he can't remember anything there was no point in asking if he had fallen.  So off to the ER we went for an X-ray and evaluation.

The result was a diagnosis of a cancer lesion that had eaten through most of the left clavicle and created a "pathological fracture".  The cancer lesion could also be seen to have moved up into the soft tissue.  This lesion is probably a secondary cancer.  In other words he has a probably primary cancer which has metastasized from some other location.  Did I want to Order tests to find out what kind of cancer this was?  No I didn't.  I didn't feel there was any reason to order a lot of extremely invasive tests, think needle into the bone to get a biopsy, which were not going to provide any information that would change the care plan.

My dad is 90.
Profoundly deaf
Has severe dementia
Went from continent to generally urinary incontinent in a week and a half
Has a waistline that went from 38 to unable to close or zip his pants in a week and half.
Cannot communicate his needs for food, water, or level of pain.

It was time for Hospice.  We were discharged with a prescription for liquid hydrocodone and an ambulance ride back to the facility.  Technically called a "gurney transport".

Thursday by 9:30 pm he was admitted to Hospice.

Adventures in Cobweb Lace Making

Adventures in felt making.

Life has settled down quite a bit and I find there is space for greater creativity.  I found myself setting up a long table in my living room and breaking out my felting supplies. Nuno felting is done by felting on to silk or cheese cloth. Cobweb felting felts to itself without the benefit of a base fabric.  I first saw the technique on Pinterest.  Inevitably with Russian explanations.

Greenwood Fibers has a YouTube video on cobweb felting.

Video watched: check
Felting supplies:  check

Result:

This fiber is a 50/25/25  Merino/silk/bamboo in a hand dyed colorway from Carin Engen Fiber Ats which I purchased from the Tin Thimble.  I was looking to put small holes in the scarf but in the felting process any holes made at the beginning of the process will grow to three times their size by the end of process.  The picture doesn't really show it, but there are still fibers running through the holes and it actually looks better in real life than in the picture.  The felting process by it's nature shrinks and what began as 72 inches became about 65 or thereabouts.  

I liked the result enough to promptly buy several colorways from Greenwood Fibers for more felting fun.  Christmas is just around the corner.

Dreaming of Adventure

Tired of Being Nice has changed her name to Dreaming of Adventure.


Life is about change and sometimes we just out grow a time, place or need.  Tired of Being Nice was conceived at the time when I was trying to stretch beyond the need to "always be nice".  But over time I realized the name seemed to convey a justification for being a troll.  When I did any kind of internet search I would find all these excuses for really nasty behavior under the heading of "tired of being nice."  That really wasn't what I meant by the title.  I meant to assert a need to not hide our heads in the sand, to stand up for injustice, to not ignore wrongs and to state calmly the Emperor had no clothes when he didn't and not pretend that all was well when it wasn't.  I didn't intend the title to convey entitlement for uncivilized behavior.

I haven't given up bitchy moments or social commentary.  That won't change here, I'll still write about those things when I feel the need to,  but it isn't my whole life and never has been.  The world is becoming a dark place and I no longer want a name that seems to support the negative in the world.

I'm really not sure that we can change others.  This is not to say that we should not try and make change by using our time and money to support the things that are important.  Let us do it with civility and mutual respect.  We can agree to disagree.  Ultimately we can only be the change we want to see in the world.  If I want the world to change then I need to change myself one step at a time.

So I have changed the title of this blog, now I just have to figure out what to do with the URL but one step at a time, one step at a time.

Not Gun Control - We Need White Male Control

I first wrote piece in December 16, 2012 after another mass shooting.  It is partially tongue in cheek but also serious.  We are a violent culture. Until we stop idolizing violence in our movies, in our television, stop accepting radio shows of hate mongering, yes Rush Limbaugh I mean  you, until we can stop thinking in extremes and start looking for places of commonality, for agreement we will continue to be a violent mentally ill society.



We don't need gun control we need white male control.  Each and every male between the ages of 12 and 30 should be registered and controlled.  They should not be allowed to move freely in society.  Guns are inanimate objects, they don't walk into schools, theaters or malls by themselves, they are innocent victims of the real perpetrators - the white male. Might as well demand underwear control.  Okay, guns have a greater potential for harm, but in our society guns are easy to get.   Now I understand there are white males without this violent tendency, but they are an inherent danger to society because of their potential.  In an effort to eliminate the danger to society, we should control all young white males.  Just as the gun control crowd argue for control of all guns even though many guns will never be held by violent people or used to harm people, these arguments are far better directed at the white male.  We need to have White Male Control NOW!!  They should not be allowed in society except in a controlled manner and only allowed to be with people that have passed a background check and have not been found guilty of a felony. The following excerpt from Mother Jones news should help clarify what's at stake and why we need to get white males off the street.  

From Mother Jones news:

Weapons: Of the 139 guns possessed by the killers, more than three quarters were obtained legally. The arsenal included dozens of assault weapons and semiautomatic handguns. (See charts below.) Just as Jeffrey Weise used a .40-caliber Glock to massacre students in Red Lake, Minnesota, in 2005, so too did James Holmes (along with anAR-15 assault rifle) when blasting away at his victims in a darkened movie theater.
The killers: Just under half of the cases involved school or workplace shootings (11 and 19, respectively); the other 31 cases took place in locations including shopping malls, restaurants, government buildings, and military bases. Forty three of the killers were white males. Only one of them was a woman. (See Goleta, Calif., in 2006.) 

Once again our country has had a mass shooting and the lack of gun control is once again being screamed from the roof tops.  I wish it were that easy or that simple.  Mental illness and yes these shooters were mentally ill  were expressing their pain in a cultural context.  There is enough evidence that mental illness is culturally expressed.  The Inuit and the Navajo both have particular expressions of mental illness that you will not see in other cultures.  While the major psychiatric disorders described in current nosology can be found among the Inuit of Northern Québec (Nunavik), there are important cultural influences on the symptomatology, social response and course of these disorders.  Sante Ment Que 1993 Spring; 18 (1): 53-70    The importance of cultural influences on symptomology and course of the disorder is not isolated to the Inuit of Northern Quebec.  Every society has unique expressions of mental illness.  Our cultural is violent and the expression of its pain is violent.  We make heroes of shooters, we have television shows that glorify violence as a way to solve problems.  We are war mongers.  The bigger, the badder the boom the more we like it.  Our media loves a good tragedy - we don't have journalists any more we have the employees of the Enquirer  masquerading as news reporters on every station. It's because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single *victim* of Columbine? attributed to Morgan Freeman (from Facebook).

We love a sound bite, we have lost courtesy and respect.  We don't want thoughtful discourse we just want to verbally bully others into accepting our point of view.  We don't want facts, we want emotional sensationalism - the recent presidential election should be example enough for this.  

Getting guns off the street won't solve this most recent heinous event.  We need a change that is much deeper.  But as long as we have a cult of celebrity and shooting people is a way to rocket to the top of the celebrity list we will continue to have mental illness expressed in the violent cultural context of killing others in public places.

Life is Change

So in the last six months I have :

Moved my dad out of his home and into full time memory care.
Closed out his home
Found a rental for Nana and I
Sold the Condo
Closed out the storage unit
              and
Gotten sick three times

For the first time in six years I have all my stuff under one roof and have been sorting, deciding what to keep and what to get rid of.    I am trying to live with less stuff and am studiously ignoring the BBQ I bought among other things.  I find that moving living in a house involves things like lawn mowers and garden equipment.

BBQ, push mowers, weed wackers, and washer/dryer sets not withstanding, I am trying to get rid of stuff.  I am in a rental for a reason.  I want to rent my way around the world - at least some day I would like to.  I have a Pinterest Board dedicated to Travel Destinations.  Whether this will stay as a fantasy or become a reality is yet to play out.  In a weird convoluted kind of way this brings me to photography.  Since I am no longer the primary caregiver for my dad I am attempting to reinvent my life.  What do I want, what do I love, can I allow myself to do what I love?  I have often felt the only things worth doing were those that cured cancer, brought world peace, ended hunger, saved animals......you get the idea.

But I love photography.  I've always admired artists that were completely unambivalent about their art and the pursuit of their artistic vision.  Because I am ambivalent and uncomfortable about pursuing my own vision I decided that this is where the internal work is, where I need to push the boundaries.   Having shared these deep insights about the inner work being where you are most uncomfortable she responded with:  "Maybe it's just being uncomfortable"  She has a point.

This blog is still my view and opinions of life, the world, and things that irk me.   but I have created another blog for my forays into photography.  v johnston photography .  

My life is currently under construction please forgive the dust.

Because Life Isn't Complicated Enough

I'm moving.   I've decided to invite the chaos of change in.  I don't like it one bit, but not moving I like even less.

I've spent the last two years taking care of my dad in Sonora. Last October he moved into full time memory care close to where I and my girls live.  I closed out his house and while there is still a lot of paperwork and things that need my oversight, his direct care is no longer mine to manage.  It is time to figure out what I want to do.

I have spent the last year in the mind game question of: "Do I buy or do I rent?"  Living in this condo was always meant to be a temporary thing that stretched out far longer than I imagined it would.  I've looked at houses and houses and condos and more houses, none of them have made my heart sing.  I have a fantasy of renting my way around the world.  I don't want a two week vacation. I want to go and live somewhere for three months or maybe a year.  I want the experience of exploring new places.   I want to know what it is like to live for a time on the Isle of Skye, Whidby Island, the Isle of Mann, Portugal and many more places.  I no longer want to be tied to a place, it is beginning to feel trapped, closed in and uncomfortable.  It may explain why I have an entire board on Pinterest devoted to narrowboats and gypsy caravans.  But I have too much stuff.  In addition, my stuff and I  have not lived under one roof for over eight years.  It's time to consolidate and begin the process of becoming unencumbered.  I am going to rent a house and sell the condo I live in. Renting a house will put me closer to the things I want: a yard for my dog, a garden, space for fiber art and a safer neighborhood.

I haven't rented since my mid twenties - it is very scary since I am a nester and like the security of owning.  But I want to channel my inner wanderer, but on my terms.  Step one is to change where I live, move all my stuff to one place and begin the winnowing process from under a single roof.   When you are focused on the needs of others, my dad for instance, it is hard to know what it is that you value.You drift without a great deal of focus taking care of one problem or crisis at a time.  You indulge in retail therapy (or at least I do), You look for distractions from your life rather than creating a life you want. I may not be going about it in the right way but my mistakes will teach me more than my successes ever will.

To every age there is a season and mine is the season of change.




PS  This move will still have me within one minute of my dad's memory care unit.  I haven't lost all sense of duty.

Cast Your Bread Upon the Waters, Ecclesiastes 11:1-6

Bread, Glorious Bread

I love bread.  I gave up on making yeast based bread about 30 years ago because it is a lot of work and time - all that kneading and waiting and it never came out with that wonderful hard, cracking crust I dreamt of. Then my friend, Mary found this wonderful article:   No Knead Bread Recipe .  I was a driven woman with a new passion and an excuse to buy Staub cast iron cookware. I also discovered a book called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day .  I was hooked.

This sounds like an infomercial, but when invited somewhere and I need to bring something I say "I'll bring bread".  Several people have asked for the recipe and being a foodie how can I deny something this good and this simple.  Besides, life is too short not to eat great bread.

So basically here it is:

3 Cups lukewarm water

1.5 Tbl yeast (2 packets)

1.5 Tbl kosher salt or other coarse salt

6.5 Cups of flour (just scoop, run a knife over the edge of the cup and dump in pot)

Use a large stock pot with a lid.  Not air tight.  

This is a cheap stock pot with a glass lid and a vent hole.  It lives in the refrigerator.

Add water, yeast, salt and flour.  Sir until blended. 

Place on counter and let rise for the next 2-8 hours.  It doesn't matter.

Store in refrigerator for 2 weeks

Makes 3-4 loaves

Baking Day:

Take cast iron dutch oven.  Place in oven at 450 degrees and preheat for 45 minutes. 

This is not cheap, but worth every penny - I use it for everything.  Besides a thing of beauty is a joy forever.

While the pot is preheating take out a glob of bread dough and form into a round loaf.  No need to knead the bread.  You can slash the top or not as you choose.  Let the dough rest on the counter while the pot is heating.

Actually I stuffed this one with 2 slices of cheese and a handful of spinach so it is extra poofy.  You can also slash the top, but I didn't do that this time.

Take lid off the pot, slide the bread dough into the pot, put the lid on the pot and set the timer for 30 minutes. Warning:  The pot is hot, hot, hot.  You can burn yourself.  Welding gloves would be a good idea.

My favorite tool for getting the bread in the pot.

When the timer goes off, remove the lid and cook for another 15 minutes.  When the timer goes off take the bread out and let cool (Yea, right…..).

This is a little flatter than normal, but I stuffed it with cheese and spinach which does change things a bit.  I plan to cut in quarters and eat it with red sauce for dinner.

For Rye bread substitute 1 Cup of Rye flour for 1 Cup of white flour.  Add 1.5 Tbl of caraway seeds.  Everything else is the same.

The Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day suggests a baking stone and a broiler pan that you add water to.  I don’t.  I use a dutch oven though many people have used other stuff.  My friend, Mary used two Pyrex bowls until she took the top bowl/ lid off the bottom bowl fresh out of the oven, put it in the sink and it shattered due to the extreme hot to cold difference.  So….safety first.

Enjoy.  I plan to start experimenting with gluten free bread next.

Dining With The Damned

Dining with the damned or dinner time in a memory care facility.

After caring for my father in his own home for two years it was time to move him to a higher level of care.  He was beginning to have episodes of bowel incontinence, wandering at night, becoming more confused.  He was rapidly becoming a fall risk which made living in a two story house with hard tile floors problematic.   It was time for placement in a full time memory care unit.  I found a facility and moved him last October three minutes away from where I live.  They provide excellent care,   That being said - memory care units are not for the faint of heart particularly at dinner time.

I visit my dad at dinner time mostly because he is awake and we have an activity to share. Well actually he eats, I sit and converse with him.  I am a retired psychotherapist and once worked with patients on a locked psychiatric ward but this is sad beyond belief.  Dad sails through it serenely.  Being 90 years old, having very poor hearing and poor eyesight is something of a blessing at these dining events.  

I watch as the fellow across from dad slowly pours his soup on the table, takes a mouthful of water and spews it over the soup all the time rocking and moaning that he is dead, he needs to go and he can't go because he's dead.  A woman at another table is clearly agitated  She cries out like a lost child:

"Mommy, Mommy where are you?  Please don't do this."

"I'll be good Mommy"  "Really, Please Mommy"

"Granpa I can't find you, where are you?"

The therapist in my wonders what her history is and why it's replaying now.  Staff moves through calmly redirecting, cleaning up, encouraging, reassuring individuals, dispensing medications and keeping residents from clashing.  It's funny, sad, and taxing for me, but I still show up.  Dad wouldn't notice if I didn't, he has no short term memory and I have to remind him of my name and my relationship to him.  "Hi Dad.  I'm Victoria.  I'm your daughter".   

Yep, it is time to have dinner with the damned.

Painting by Hieronymus Bosch

Tribute to a Former Mother-in-Law

Estred with my infant daughter

The funeral is today.

I am sad but not grieved.  I feel more nostalgic for the passing of an era in my life.  She lived long enough to see the passing of both her parents, her sister, her husband, her brother-in law, sister-in-law and her youngest son.  She also lived long enough to see the birth of four grandchildren and to be able to attend the marriage of my daughter two years ago. She did not live long enough to see the birth of her first great-grandson.  My daughter will bring a son into this world come March.  Cue the Circle of Life music.

This woman taught me many things.  She was the one that taught me to cook, vegetable garden, preserve food and in many ways what a family should look like.  We all lived on the coast in the Northwest of California, each weekend the collective family would head to the cabin inland.  They had a small orchard and a huge vegetable garden.  Grandma, aunt, uncle, in-laws, and my husband and I would convene here.  They were Swedish stock and we broke for coffee morning and afternoon.  We had lunch and cocktails before dinner.  We spent hours on the deck shelling peas from the garden and preserving and freezing in the hot kitchen.  In August we stood under the cover of the carport and packed crate after crate of peaches the men would bring to us from the orchard.  They sold the good peaches, we canned the culls.

The cabin is now gone as is the last member of that time and place.  All things change but a large part of me is nostalgic for that time in the garden, at the tables of the packing shed and on the deck with the women of the family shelling peas and gossiping.

She will always have a special place in my heart.  

Why yes, I am Happily Single

I have been mildly amused of late with the sidebar adds on my yahoo mail account.   We all know that there is no privacy and ads are tailored to your lifestyle and interests.  Trust me they track everything which is why I am always getting horse and fiber (not the stuff to you eat) Ads.  But these Ad people aren't all that accurate and often offer the darndest things.  Somewhere they picked up on the fact that I was divorced and therefore single, which is correct, but after that it was all down hill.  Apparently no one should be single, and they had Ads to help fix that.

For the longest time I got these sidebar ads for dating men.  These men were all various ages and a real cutie was some guy out of Las Vegas, but after a year this fellow apparently still didn't have a date which is why he kept showing up in a sidebar Ad trying to get my interest.  Frankly if this poor fellow couldn't get a date after spending everyday as a sidebar Ad on my computer and every other computer, well.....would I really want to date him - I don't think so.  Since I wasn't interested in Mr. Las Vegas the Ad people decided to try something different.  So then I was getting 50+ Christian men looking for real woman to take care of - No games.  All right, that is really sweet, but where did they get the idea I was looking for a Christian man to coddle me.  I'm not Christian and while I have a great deal of respect for many aspects of the Christian religion it just has never resonated with me and I wasn't raised in that faith. So...no clicky clicky on that sidebar ad for me.

The Ad people went back to the drawing board.  Drop the Christian theme and just see if we can tempt her with some 50+ hunky guys.  Yawn......Thanks guys, but I was married for some 25 years.  While I thinks it is great for many and there are certainly aspects of a good marriage I do miss - I really am happily single at this time in my life.   But apparently being single is something that needs to be fixed and since I wasn't clicking on pictures of sexy men maybe I would prefer to date a 50+ hot woman.  I was startled and mildly amused when my sidebar Ad suddenly changed to great looking 50+ women about a week and a half ago.  Well, I do admit it got my attention, but not because I was interested in dating a 50+ woman.  Yesterday, I actually got an Ad that said "date great men here or women".  Curiouser and curiouser,  what will they suggest next?

Yes, I have been mildly amused lately, but then perhaps I am easily amused.   I think it is very thoughtful that the Ad people want to alleviate my perceived loneliness, but I'm doing just fine thank you and should I decide to start dating again I'll let you know.

Knitting as a Meditative Practice or the Sculling Cowl Revisited

It occurred to me that knitting could be a meditative practice.  Some meditators use a word or count breathes. The point being that you bring your focus to what you are doing. You are present in the moment.

After stating even I could do the Sculling Cowl because the lace pattern was so easy I had to eat crow and rip the whole thing back and start over.  You see, a decrease in knitting can have a right slant or a left slant.  This cowl has both right and left slanting decreases which add to the design effect. In other words sometimes the stitches need to slant one direction and other times they need to slant the other way.  However, if you are me and your mind has slipped around the corner for a little walkabout you don't notice the pattern chart has done a hard left and you are still merrily on a right hand walk about.  Blech!  And because I had not put in a life line (this was such a simple lace pattern even I could do it) I frogged the whole thing and started over.

The result:  Knitting as a Meditative Practice was born

Knitting mantra goes like this:

1
2
3
k2tog
yo
1
2

Repeat this mantra 20 times to complete the row.  Gently bring attention back to the mantra for this row.  Bring attention back again and again and again.  Even the Dali Lama says meditation is hard. 

Begin next row with a new mantra as the pattern has shifted.  What hasn't shifted is trying to stay in the moment and having to bring my attention back to the moment over and over again.

I am knitting without a lifeline. 

The Sculling Cowl

The Sculling Cowl  I have always said I would rather gnaw my leg off than do lace - however this is a simple lace pattern with a 7 stitch repeat and 14 rows and even I can manage to do it. Well me and stitch markers placed every 14 stitches. One can never have too many stitch markers when doing lace in my opinion. I can manage to screw up even the simplest of patterns.  My mind just starts to wander, it was here a minute ago paying attention and then well.....it just went on walkabout.   I see knitting as a Zen practice.  Lace requires one to be focused and present.  Elizabeth Zimmerman may have been able to knit with her eyes closed or read a story to children and knit at the same time, but my brain just implodes and I then spend as much time un-knitting as I did knitting.  I can only do one thing at a time.

But a lace cowl it is for a Yule gift.  I did a quick, down and dirty gauge (it is a cowl folks) and then did the 280 stitch cast on. I added one more stitch at the end so that I could do the K2tog when I joined the two ends to start knitting in the round thus losing the extra stitch I'd added. I find this little trick makes a better join and gets rid of that sloppy long piece that my joins always seem to have on the first row.  Maybe one day I will be a good enough knitter to have perfect little joins without this little dodge - but until then...... I will stick to my dodgy knitting practices.

I have to say, so far I am really, really enjoying this pattern. It is also a lesson in reading charts. I have always been a “just write it out please”, but I am beginning to understand why so many peeps love charts. I've just read Barbara Walker’s treatise on charts and there value in her book:  A Third Treasury of Knitting Patterns  so it was time to stretch my knitting skills. 

In the meantime:

How I think I look while knitting

What I really look like when knitting

Following Knit Patterns makes me Cranky

There is a truism in knitting that says American patterns include too much and European patterns don't include enough.  There are whole classes in how to read Japanese patterns.  I think there are all kinds of reasons for this that are cultural, reflect traditions and accessibility to mentors.  As an American knitter taught by a neighbor when I was 13 and then not coming back to it until many years later I have been slowly trying to knit my way to competency.  Which brings me to why patterns make me cranky.

First, they so often have huge errors.  Errata sheets abound.  Having designed a couple of things,  Errors happen.  I  have had to make corrections; even when I had test knitters.  Personally, I really like inexperienced test knitters, because they really, really read the pattern and ask all kinds of questions which allows one to find the confusing places.

Second, in the digital age I think it is possible to sell a pattern and include a FAQ about the pattern which the buyer does not have to print but they can reference.  I think this should be standard.  I spent a good bit of time yesterday trying to figure out if the designer really intended to have the "wrong" side of the 3 needle bind-off be on the "right side" of the little sweater.  Being somewhat dyslexic,  when things get all inside/outside I start getting twitchy.  I went to two different websites and a project page at Ravelry trying to figure out if I was the only one who found the following instructions

On a RS row make two button holes
Cast on over button holes on return row, knit one more row
Now put right sides together and bind off left shoulder
3 needle bind off right shoulder *

had the stitches incorrectly placed on the needle to actually accomplish this instruction.  I was getting twitchier by the moment.  Was I really that stupid?  How come I couldn't make this work?  If I had started on a wrong side row would it have come out correctly?  Is there an error in the pattern?  Is the error this part or that part?  ACK!!!!!!!  I would love to have gone to a FAQ page and seen a designer say:  "Why yes, the "wrong" side of the 3 needle bind off showing on the shoulder is suppose to be a design element".  I still don't know.  I just "made it up", and in the bigger picture it doesn't really matter, it's only knitting and a kid sweater to boot.  Except I would like to have enough expertise and confidence to actually know I can read/interpret what is being written and understand what the designer is trying to accomplish. 

There is also too much information.  There is a designer who wrote 24 pages for a pattern, the majority, in my opinion, waxing poetical about how clever she was.  Someone else condensed the pattern down to one page and if you cut out one paragraph from somewhere around page 23 you can knit this very simple shawl without ever looking at the other pages.  Yes the design is clever and beautiful and deceptively simple - but in this case just give me the straight instructions.  Give me a FAQ page and let me wax poetical about how brilliant you are.

My knitted knickers are in a twist today over pattern reading.


* short version of instructions

 

 

 

My Fantasy Life Runneth Over

I have a serious case of squirrel brain. 

I am still taking care of my father who's cognitive abilities continue to decline.  His health is generally very good, it is his memory that is a two minute wonder.  We spend a lot of time at the doctor, actually lots of different doctor's, on a weekly or in some cases a couple of times of week basis.  Where eight months ago he would get up, shower, shave, get dressed and come down stairs; these days he doesn't shower or shave without being prompted.  This does not endear me to him and he gets irritated - but he does go back to the shower.  But doesn't shave, so I save that reminder for later in the day.  He has good days and bad days.  It is sort of like going into winter, the days just continue to get colder and the weather worse even though you have an occasional good day. 

But all of this has prompted a serious case of squirrel brain and a rich fantasy life.  And I don't mean porn  unless some hot guy wants to clean my house in a speedo.  My fantasies run more like the following:

I'm going to get an airstream:
     No wait they are really expensive and my youngest wants to borrow it for burning man. 
     People drive like maniacs.
     I hate driving freeways.
     I hate KOA parks (ok, I have never been in one, but I'm sure I wouldn't like it)

Wait....I'll buy a narrowboat and moor it on a canal in England. 
     I've actually done this and it is fun
     I love the water
     If you don't like your neighbors, you just motor on a mile and moor there
     I love tow paths
     I could really do this
     How often would I really cross the pond, dragging the dog with me?

 

I want to learn wood working on a lathe
     I could go to Cheyenne Wyoming and take private lessons.
     I don't want to stay in motels, might be bedbugs
     I'll get a little travel trailer, this time a little Casita, half the price
     I hate freeways, campgrounds and KOA parks

I really need to remodel my little Condo
     Hardwood or Laminate
     I am really going to have to stage this, because I have no place to move all the stuff to while it is being remodeled
     Definitely want this kitchen look
    
Maybe I can just become a gypsy senior and move all over the world
     Might be difficult with the dog
     Might be difficult with the horse
     I'm officially going to be a grandmother - do I want to be half way around the world?
     But love the idea of roaming around

The one thing I do notice is that all my fantasies involve escapism.  I'm sure that is no accident.
    
    

The Wallet-Vote

For years I have used my grocery money as a way to vote.  I would shop at local Co-ops, farmer's markets, buy only organic products.  I think you get the picture.  One of the most difficult things in this age of multi-national corporations is to know who you are buying from.  A nice little organic/free range/we are nice to animals type company starts up and then it gets sold to Pepsi, or Coca-Cola and who the !@#$ knows what is happening.

Well along comes an app for iPhone or Droid to help you sort out whether that item you are buying matches your values.  The app is called Buycott and here is a link to a review:   Buycott app for iPhone and Droid  This little gem of an app allows you to scan a bar code and get information regarding the companies "family tree" and whether it conflicts with any of the campaigns you have joined.  For example:  I downloaded the app for iPhone, created an account and joined 4 campaigns. 

No Monsanto
Demand GMO labeling
Save the pigs  (not that I eat pork, but it is an farm/animal rights issue for me)
No to GMO/yes to non GMO products

So off to the store and bar scan the celery,  oops, the brand I picked up donated money to keep GMO's from being labeled.  The celery next to it had no such conflict.  I bought the non-conflict free celery.    It is a complex world with little transparency, and this is just one more way I can try and make my wallet-vote count for something. 

You can find more information on the  Buycott website. 

Giving Away His Books

Caregiving is exhausting, perhaps not physically - but definitely mentally.  It requires many new abilities:

The ability to withstand the Chinese water torture Repetitive questions you have just answered.  No dad, the cats aren't out they just came in.  No dad, the cats aren't out they just came in.  No dad, the cats aren't out they just came in.  No dad, the cats aren't out they just came in.

Join the local Liars Club to sharpen one's lying skills Go to the mail box and grab the bills and then pretend you haven't been there and let your father get the mail, so you don't have to go through the recycling and pull out all the bills later and hope you haven't missed one. 

Learn an infinite amount of patience (see Chinese water torture)

Learn to be a personal valet, accountant, handyman, wait staff and chauffer  No, that cup of coffee shouldn't be heated for 36 minutes, here let me do that for you.   Here, I'll clean the kitchen those dishes you just put away are dirty.  No dad, you can't drive - you haven't been able to drive for months.

It will also challenge you to learn compassion  The individual that was so smart and competent and could speak with intelligence on any subject now can't recognize a tuna fish sandwich when it is put in front of him - but will eat it anyway.

And if you don't have one, a dark sense of humor and an appreciation for irony.  The house is large, but he lives in the library, kitchen and his bedroom.  Dad recently stood in the library and looked at all his books and said that he thought he might give them away to the local Assisted Living facility eventually.  His reasoning: He might as well have his books donated there so he could still have them if he had to move there.  He said there might come a point where he might have to have someone look after him and make sure he got his pills, etc.  But fortunately, he was still able to take care of himself.  I just agreed with him and said, yep - good thing you can take care of yourself and we can worry about donating your books later.  Then he started to cry, what about my cats if I have to go there?  Your cats are fine dad, and you are in your own home, you don't have to go anywhere right now. 

Here, let me get you your pills and a chocolate chip cookie.  Would you like milk with that?

Notification to the Local Liar's Club:    I may be willing to run for President.



 

MKAL - Game of Thrones

I am participating in a MKAL through Jimmy Beans Wool on Ravelry.  For those who need a translation this means:  a Jimmy Beans Wool designer a has proposed "Mystery Knit A Long (MKAL).  The theme is from Game of Thrones, a very popular book and HBO series.  The mystery is we have no idea what the designer has in mind.  We get a new clue once a week for 5 or 6 weeks and happily or fearfully knit, trusting we will recognise the item at the end.  Whether it is something we will ever use is not the point.  It is the experience of mystery and stretching our skill set we are chasing (at least it is for me).   There are apparently some 500 individuals who are participating in this and the skill range runs the gamut from beginners to seasoned beta knit testers who have no fear of plowing there way through any thing because they have this incredibly broad skill set from which to draw when things get wonky.  This MKAL is on the website, Ravelry.  Ravelry is a knit and crochet social networking site and one of the best  social networking sites I've ever seen.  Absolutely brilliant and free.   Everything was just honky-dory until Clue #4.  Then all hell broke loose and the "we all play nice" gloves came off.

Clues 1-3 were pretty simple knit/purl in the round stuff.  Clue #3 added short rows for some shaping which caused some of the beginner knitters a crisis in confidence.  But everyone made it through.  The forum provides chat, feedback, pictures and encouragement.  There were some very seasoned knitters that provided advice, pictures and were the vanguard - they also managed to knit the entire damn first 3 clues in less than 15 minutes.  Personally, I think some of them have magic knitting wands - but that is a separate issue.  Clue #4 got a bit tricky - you have to separate the front from the back, start knitting flat and do this birds eye lace piece and oh yes....add some button holes on either side.  Just to add some spice - the instructions were wrong, some lines of instructions were missing and .....well......the designer was at a wedding.  Between last night and this morning there were some 200+ comments about this clue and some of the opinions were less than courteous.  It seems everyone has an opinion about Clue #4.  Typically, both sides have valid points. 

Crazysalad had this to say: 

Everyone is so patient and expects so little. Not me. I expected the instructions to have been written in advance, tested and proofread. Some of the knitters seem to feel that the designer is offering this Mystery KAL as an act of charity. Jimmy Bean’s is a multi-million dollar company that is taking advantage of a hugely popular TV show. At least 500 knitters joined, many of them purchasing (as I did) Jimmy Bean’s own custom-dyed yarn specified in the pattern. I assumed that all the blog postings were prepared and ready to go BEFORE the first clue was even published. I never dreamed that we’d have to wait for someone to recover from a family wedding to post the 4th clue two hours late.
As for the mistakes in the pattern…
When you offer a Mystery KAL, it is essential that the instructions are crystal clear because we are following BLINDLY. We have no pictures. We don’t even know what the finished object is. We are trusting that, at least, the instructions are correct. We follow on faith.


Lilb had this to say in response: 

I think everyone here has had patterns where there are errors. I’ve been a beta tester for knitting/needlework/beading patterns for years & it ALWAYS happens. The most common types are the one we had with the lace “I knew what to do so it just slipped my mind to put it in” I’ve seen that on almost every pattern I’ve checked & done it myself more times than I can count when trying to write out instructions or teach someone a new technique (I’m no designer, having the ‘honor’ of having FLUNKED kindergarten art & I’ve got the report card to prove it). To expect perfection all the time is unreasonable especially when the person posting the pattern in a KAL is in the middle of a big, happy family event.

I think these two individuals pretty well represent the two sides and are both correct.  Most of the other commentary is clarifications or comments on the comments.  Having designed a couple of things - it is amazing what gets overlooked, or isn't clear in the instructions when it is all so clear in one's own mind.  Test knitters catch all kinds of things.  Knitting patterns often end up with mistakes some knitter out there catches after dozens have knitted it up without comment.  Experienced knitters often just wing it, fiddle, or go their own way when they run into a confusing bit and mistakes don't get noticed until some new knitter tries to follow the instructions literally.  This MKAL has some 500 test knitters of different skills levels and I have to agree a greater attention to detail and clarity in the 4th clue would have been appropriate and helpful.  I also agree that to expect perfection is unrealistic.  But above all - I would expect courtesy which is so much a part of the Ravelry experience.

One of the things I have always appreciated is the courtesy, support and generous sharing of experience and skills on the Ravelry website.  While Clue #4 definately had some instruction difficulties, time and good intent on the part of the designer (and the other eperienced knitters) would and is making it all come out correctly.

In the meantime, some rules from the road of life:

Patience is a virtue
I don't think everything that can be said, should be said. 
Our moods shouldn't dictate our manners.
Criticize in private and praise in public.

Obstacles and Setbacks (A Masters Handknit post)

Swatch 14

I knew they were fragile.
I knew they didn't handle big changes in temperature and weather.
I knew they were old.
I knew hauling them around in the trunk was a bad idea.

But.....

There was so much else on my plate.

 

 

I think the knitting fairies are trying to tell me something. 

So....I'll just keep telling myself it's the process, not the destination.  In the mean time I have bought another pair of needles and will start this little dance of yarn and frustration from the top.  Never being anywhere for more than 3-4 days without having to travel again makes "best work" just that much harder - I'm currently settling for " Wow, I actually knitted a whole row" before having to attend to something or someone.  I'm all about brainless or simple knitting at the moment. 

 

Okay, I'm through whining.

 

Oddly, I think the frustration and setbacks are actually making me a better knitter in many ways - go figure.