I've always enjoyed running errands and shopping, something I have in common with my late dad. And because I'm a freelancer, I end up taking care of a lot of home-related tasks like arranging for repair people and being home to let them in, or taking the dogs to vet appointments and such. And as I said, it's usually an enjoyable thing. This summer I'm working onsite for a client pretty much full-time during business hours, which restricts my errand-running hours. (And I see that Miss Lucy is way overdue for a nail-trimming visit to the lovely people at Wizard of Paws. Gotta fit that in, maybe next Friday afternoon.) So I feel like I need to be very efficient about errands, and get as many done in one trip as possible. And the pressure is getting to me. My love of driving around town, gettin' stuff done, looking at... Continue reading

If I were to create a Day of the Dead altar for my dad, it would have some pretty gringo things on it. A commuter mug of coffee, room temperature A portable TV with a football game on Ritz crackers with peanut butter on them A nicely grilled steak, rare in the middle A picture of Dad with one of the family dogs who's passed on, probably Haley. For the rest of the day I'm going to imagine Dad in his den, with all the family dogs of the past 40 years dozing on the floor around him. I wish I could have a picture of that. Continue reading

After several days of sophisticated eats in New York City restaurants (and one street-cart hot dog that was really nothing to write home about—and some cruddy convention-center lunches for Jane), dinner tonight is going to be tuna-noodle casserole with crushed potato chips on top. It's mostly the genuine old-school article, with a couple of twists: bottled alfredo pasta sauce instead of canned cream of mushroom soup, and a frozen peas/carrots/corn/green beans medley instead of straight peas. Ordinarily I would shun the bottled alfredo sauce, but I'm on deadline, so I took the shortcut. I was inspired by week-old leftover potato chips and a craving for comfort food brought on by the cold that I picked up somewhere in the big city. I have lots of pictures and lots of experiences to share; I'll aim for getting some posted here late in the week. Continue reading

This is really not the way I wanted to reanimate my poor, moribund blog. And I don't want to be Debbie Downer. But life—and death—happens, and life's been eventful lately in a way that I wouldn't have chosen. My dad got ill suddenly in early May, and a week later he passed away. I wish that no one I care about would have to experience anything like it. Being with him and the rest of my family during his hospitalization was one of the most difficult things I've ever been through, and incredibly surreal much of the time. At this point daily life has gotten back to more or less normal for me, but then something will bring our loss back into sharp focus. Continue reading

Tina came through her surgery OK yesterday, with only a minor complication to follow up on. She's gradually shaking off the effects of being under general anesthesia, and she is being so good about all the medicines she has to get. (I am terrible at administering eyedrops, though. I'm never sure if I've gotten any in her eye at all.) I think by the end of the weekend she should be back to jumping over the little dogs when they're in her way and pokin' them when they annoy her too much. Continue reading

Our oldest dog is going in for eye surgery in a couple of hours, so if you could hold a good thought for her and us today, I'd really like that. She's having an ulcer on her cornea repaired to prevent further deterioration of or damage to her eye. I hope the surgery goes fine and she recovers well, and quickly. I don't really want to think about the other possible outcomes. Continue reading

well, sorta. Spotted in the Knitting Today office... Continue reading

One of the little rules I have for myself is to try to finish two WIPs before I cast on another project—although I ignore the rule often, always for reasons that seem perfectly justified, like the St. Anthony Foundation call for handknit scarves this Christmas. Now that I've finished my second design assignment for Knitting Today, which will be in the May/June issue, I took a short break and then returned to my personal knitting. My top priority has been to finish the vest for Jane's dad that has been in the works for about 15 months. The last thing I had left to do was finish the back, which felt like miles of plain stockinette (Jane's dad is tall). I finished all the pieces, and it's blocking now. So it's close, but not really finished—there are still button bands and armhole ribbing to knit, as well as seaming the... Continue reading

Actually, it's not my smiling face, and it's not the Rolling Stone: But it is my design on the cover. (And my smiling face actually is inside the magazine...) I have to confess that I have been haunting my local JoAnn store for most of the week, waiting for the hard copies to arrive, and today I grabbed a handful. And today I've been feeling like this guy: I just finished a submission for the next issue, and I'm ready to start sketching some more designs. Continue reading

I was just catching up on podcasts, and listening to an old Science Friday episode about hominid fossils. I've always been somewhat interested in anthropology, and someday I'd like to have a decent grasp of the scope of human evolution (that is, how long have we actually been here?). It seems like it's a straightforward fact that I should be able to just learn, but it's slippery, and I can't conceptualize it. This podcast actually helped me a bit to put into context all the "x million" and "x-ty thousand years ago" numbers that get attached to Lucy and Artie, and all the other fossil remnants of our ancestors. The guest expert mentioned (casually, as if it were an obvious point) that there have been many hominid species: Neanderthals, homo erectus, australopithecus, and plenty more. First little zing of an aperçu: Oh. Homo sapiens is a species like golden eagles... Continue reading

On today's morning walk with the dogs my ears pricked up when I heard an unfamiliar call. My first assumption was that a neighborhood starling had learned a new call--this wasn't their typical wolf whistle, but it was on their turf. I looked around, and the bird was conveniently in full view at the top of an oak, in full sun. The bird was nearly robin-size, pearly gray, with yellow coming up the sides from its belly; it has a dark eye and pale under its eye, and a shortish, dark bill. (Mind you, I didn't have binoculars and the bird was 25 feet up.) I started thinking about olive-sided flycatcher or something in the same family. After I finished the dog walk I went back with binoculars, but the bird was gone. Based on the field marks, though, it was a Western kingbird--the first one I've seen in my... Continue reading

I'm tempted to slip a little hydrogen peroxide into the dogs' water bowl because of something Ethel did on our walk this morning. She disappeared into some bushes completely when my back was turned and didn't respond to calls or whistles. Really, I was standing right in front of these bushes looking, and I couldn't see her. When I was good and panicked about spending the day searching for a lost dog she emerged from the bushes--with poop, probably human, on her lips. So she just lost all off-leash privileges, and I dislike homeless people just a little bit more. Continue reading

This is the first sweater I ever knit (in Pingouin no. 55—from 1985?—and yes, I still have the pattern book. There are classics in there, I tell you). I'm guessing that the family photo below, in which I am modeling the sweater and my prized Wayfarers, is from 1987 or 1988. I wore the sweater to pieces—long past the time it should have been retired, but I'm sentimentally attached. Recently I wondered whether I could recycle it into a cardigan by felting it and cutting up the front. So I painstakingly darned the moth holes and resewed some weak seams and then felted it (with scraps of the original, 25-year-old yarn). But goshdarnit, the fundamentally boxy shape and massive batwing sleeves hadn't changed. It wasn't magically transformed into a better-looking garment by a fuzzier texture and some shrinkage. So it got tossed on my pile of WIPs, to be dealt... Continue reading