an ent knits

I don't know what to call this post, either

My grandmother died today.  The funeral is on Sunday. 

She got to spend her last month in my parents' house, in relative comfort, which is something.

There are too many different words competing right now, so I'm not going to say anything else (here) until they've settled down a bit.

i don't know what to call this post

As I said, I spent last week (Tuesday through early this morning) visiting my parents at their home in Burlington, VT.  Most of the week went more or less as planned--lounging around, running errands with my mom, picking raspberries and grapes and such, jamming (and chutneying) with my dad, generally hanging out with my parents and grandmother...  And then, on Saturday morning, we wound up taking my grandmother to the hospital because she was having trouble breathing.  As I understand it, she's doing okay, considering, and should be out of the hospital soon (probably with some sort of home hospice arrangement), but that's not exactly going to stop me from worrying.

I did still go to the Vermont Sheep & Wool for an hour or so--my mom chased my dad and me out of the hospital for a while--and I was very glad to run into a bunch of friends, even if I wasn't exactly in the best of moods for socializing.  (I know I was trying to act more chipper than I felt, but if I seemed upset or unfriendly, or just spacey, well, now you know why.)

This is the fiber I bought while I was there:

One ounce (more or less) each of Icelandic lamb/angora bunny, Icelandic lamb, and Icelandic lamb/tussah, all from Frelsi Farm.  I'm finding the greys to be soothing (not to mention the soothing properties of all that softness), and I think these'll go nicely with the grey shetland that I bought last spring.  (I also picked up a couple of colors of dye, but the other yarns & fibers that really caught my eye were either way out of my price range or small enough lots that I wasn't sure they'd be useful.)

*Sigh*.  Well, I'm home again now, which means I'm back with a snuggly cat (my parents' cat is not unfriendly, but she doesn't like contact beyond head-scritching), but also means I don't have live-in help assembling dinner.  (Mel will only eat dry cat food, which I'm not interested in sharing.)  Time to go work on some real food.

home, albeit briefly

Colorado was awesome, especially getting to meet Anne and Marisa.  I had a great time, and took about 300 pictures.  (I'm sure many of them will eventually find their way here.)

I had been looking forward to a weekend of catching up on housework and playing with Mel, but it turns out that I'll be going to Lynchburg.  My grandfather died while I was away, and there's a memorial service on Sunday.  This isn't surprising--he'd been sick for a while, and had been switched to only palliative care about six weeks ago--so while I'm sad, I'm not devastated. 

Anyway, I've got a lot of stuff to do today, so I'll stop trying to come up with a creative way to end this post.

life is rough

Although lots of things about my life are incredibly good (a fact of which I have been reminding myself a lot), there are a few major aspects that are not making me happy at all.  I don't want to get into the details here, but I thought I should mention that things are not great rather than just pretending that life is perfect. 

I have been soothing myself with knitting on the peacock feather shawl (still in chart 3, though) and spinning, so there should be picture-worthy fiber stuff soon. 

eye candy friday

Happy Chanukah, or whatever other winter holidays you might celebrate.  I, being ever prepared and strict in my observances (yes, that was sarcasm), wound up using birthday candles in my menorah this year.  (They work, but I'm going to try to find candles designed for my menorah for next year--I burned my thumb while melting the bottom of the shamas so it'd stay in the candle cup.)  I also compressed my candle-lighting a bit, which is why you're seeing all the candles lit before this evening; travel complicates things.   (Oh, and the funny extra light in the background?  That's the streetlamp outside my window.)

Star

I baked bread on Sunday, for the first time in months and months, maybe a year.  I was really excited about the prospect of a weekend day for just housework, and I went back and forth about whether I wanted to bake fancy bread, like challah, or just honey-whole wheat, and whether to make a braid or a rectangular loaf...  I had been planning to write something about process v. product, and how I'm much more a "process" person when it comes to bread than I am for knitting. 

And then I got a phone call saying that Star had died, completely out of the blue. 

I had met her for lunch the week before, something we'd had scheduled for weeks because we both tend to be extremely busy, and the end of our conversation had included the idea that it would be nice to bake bread together sometime. 

This is the kind of time when I wish I were better at writing and at explaining my emotions.  My analytical bent works better for science, and my non-biology vocabulary has been suffering these last few years...  I didn't know Star really well, although I would say we were friends.  She was an amazing woman, and she will be missed.  There is more that I would like to say, if I but knew how to verbalize it.  So...go read some of her writings, call a friend you haven't spoken to in months, and appreciate pirates or vampires or zombies or robots or (other) shiny gadgets or ballroom dancing however you may see fit.

left hand

number five

I have been to New York five times since the beginning of this academic year. I've visited for my uncle's wedding, for his funeral, for Thanksgiving, for a day of wandering around and meeting Cassie, and, yesterday, for the funeral of my uncle's widow. I spent six hours on trains yesterday, with my dad (who was and is again in Philly for meetings), and never once pulled out my knitting. (We did do a couple of crosswords and a sudoku, though.) Hey, world? I know that people get old and die, and I can deal with that. But could I have at least six months to recover from this year so far before anything else scary happens to my family (or friends)?

So that this post won't be entirely depressing, here's a picture of a sign we found amusing, on the way from dinner to the train home.

first bits

My holiday trip to Virginia was not really anything like the super-relaxing vacation that I'd expected. It was stressful, and I'm at least as tired now as I was when I left last week, and it's only the ridiculous number of fun things planned for this week that's keeping me moving much at all. (And I've still managed to be either late or really late for stuff, and I'm starting to question the sanity of my planned trip to New York tomorrow. But if I don't go tomorrow, how am I going to use the extra dollar on my metrocard??)

The trip to Virginia did include some funny bits, though. One example of the somewhat-inappropriate humor was the sign in the hospital that said "Skilled Care [Wing]". That kinda struck me as implying that the people elsewhere don't have/need skill. (My cousin, the occupational therapist, said something about how it's a difference in how much the nurses do versus assistanty people, but I'm not really clear on that.)

And then we saw a very amusing sign on the way home, which I've reconstructed here:

And, aside from all of the weird bits from actually celebrating with other people, my Chanukah candles make me happy.

sorry about the low contrast, but check the background

Mel, who's never seen either the menorah or candles on the floor before this week, is just curious about them. (Yeah, yeah, when I get my table cleared of clutter and blocking boards, I may switch to lighting candles on the table instead of on the floor.)

I've also been knitting some lately. The trivet got its foam base sewn on okay, and it went over well. I'm maybe 40% through the head on the baby bobbi bear (but I have yet to knit the legs), and the new Jaywalker has switched colors and the leg pattern is visible. And I survived a fiasco of plying my alpaca-silk (into mostly laceweight 2-ply) that required assistance from both my parents.

training

If all goes well, by the time you see this, I'll be at my grandmother's house, a few blocks from this railroad bridge, having travelled by Amtrak. (Not over that bridge, though.)

I'll have limited internet access over the next several days, but I'll be back to Philly, if not blogging, on Tuesday evening.