Lilac nearing its zenith

Two days since I said it was about to be in full bloom, and here it is! And it smells amazing. If I smelled this on a person I'd be repelled, but from the plant world, and especially since it's so fleeting, I adore it. And it only lasts such a short time before it's gone, and then it's just a shrubbery. Ah well...
 

Spring cleaning & cooking

First, here's the lovely spaghetti sauce Adam made today:



I suspect I took a picture of the last batch we made. Who cares, I love taking pictures of the food MFA makes me. And yes, it tastes fantastic. This is a double batch, plus he made an extra batch of meatballs (tripled the recipe, in all) that I've put away in the freezer for next time.

Meanwhile, I made myself useful and partially cleaned up the garage and the mudroom and my office. It's still a pig sty back here (office) but it's getting better. At least I took out the bags of recycling (paper) and the box the printer came in.

When it gets cooler I will go out and do some more gardening, but 95 deg is too damn hot to be digging in the dirt. In the meantime, check out my apple & lilac, which are beginning to blossom:


 

Experience, Strength, and Hope

I love reading Cary Tennis's advice column because he is so kind, so compassionate, and so clearly has been there like all of us. He's not handing down best practices from some dais on high; he's passing along his own experience, strength, and hope. (I do feel that today he went a little off the rails into the political arena, but he generally brings it back home, and explains why he's gone off on the rant.)

Sometimes, he's quite blunt and intense:

We go through a lot of shit. The hitting-bottom thing: I so relate to that! I felt throughout my punk years that I had no right to my own rage because I myself had had it comparatively good. I was not from the gutter. I aspired to the gutter! But I came from the suburbs! I aspired to the gutter because the gutter would explain everything; it was the objective correlative to my poverty of spirit! I aspired to the gutter and eventually attained it but not without struggle and hard work! And then, having attained it, having reached my dream of ending up face-down in the gutter, I finally felt, having lost everything, that I had the right to my own suffering!

(From Mom is alcoholic, Dad is dead: Why do I feel so alone? Cary Tennis's advice column on Salon)

This paragraph reached out and grabbed me because once, I too "aspired to the gutter," and I've never really had a better explanation for it than how, upon reaching the gutter, my outsides finally matched how my insides had for a long time felt.

He said another priceless thing in this same column: "Do you identify with power or do you identify with those upon whom that power is cruelly exercised?" I've never heard it put like that before - I've often wondered why I always cheer for the underdog, relate to the tenant and not the landlord, raise a metaphorical fist for the downtrodden. I haven't been a member of the underclass for a long time, but I still relate to them better than to those with money, power, etc. Now I don't feel so mistaken about it.
 

First day of gardening, 2009

We both got out into the garden and did some cleanup and planting. I bought some ranunculus (ranunculi?) in planters just to put out on the front stoop:



I love ranunculus and hope I can have them in my wedding bouquet, if they are hothouseable (because I don't think they're in season in November). But for now we get to have them on the front stoop.

I also cleaned up the bed under the apple tree, clearing away all the dead foliage from last year, and uncovered the hostas starting to come up:



I tried to take a picture of the budding pear tree and lilac, but they were too hard to photograph yet.

We also did some work on the vegetable garden but I discuss that in the Armageddon Garden Club blog. Please read further over there. :)
 

Signs of spring, borrowed

Knitting Iris reported in poetic language about a flock of robins returning to her area. Worth a quick read.
 

How many weeks' salary should you spend on an engagement ring?

We have a really cool new feature at FiLife.com (where I work)! The Stacker, an online polling tool, has been a part of the site for months, but as of today anybody can create their own poll. Then you can share it on Facebook or all the other community sites (e.g., Digg).



My poll, which I'm giving my version of the full court press, asks how many weeks' salary someone should spend on an engagement ring. I've put it up on Facebook and Digg and LinkedIn. I am hoping people will take the poll and pass it on to their friends, and just generally come to the site and create their own polls and add to the buzz about FiLife.
 

Productive weekend

I guess all I need is for Adam to go away and I get a lot done. That sounds terrible! But when he's here, I prefer to hang out with him on the weekends, rather than go out and do a lot of errands. Anyway, this weekend he's been in Vegas, so I've been on my own, and as a result I've been pretty productive. Not as much as I could be - I had an idea I might clean out the garage or plant some stuff maybe - but not too bad.

For one thing, I finally went to David's Bridal and tried on some dresses. I've been dreading this, because I am plump and I don't feel very pretty lately, and I hate trying on clothes even when I'm thin! But it had to be done. I've already tried to get a dressmaker to make me a dress, but the cost was too high. I'd like to keep it under $1000. Anyway, I was also planning to go by myself, which would have been a nightmare, but fortunately Adam's sister Tracy offered to come along. It made the day, because otherwise I would have been too shy to stick up for myself with the sales person and also, who would have taken pictures? With Tracy there, I had more of myself accessible to myself, if that makes any sense. The sales person was super nice, too. I didn't really find anything I liked, although I did try on at least one dress I wouldn't mind being married in. So perhaps I can say I have a backup choice now.

I also found a website, Martin McCrea Designs, later yesterday, which has a lot of funky designs for wedding dresses all under $1000, and they have a pretty tolerant return policy (they have a storefront in Arizona, but the rest of us have to buy from them online) so you can try on dresses and return them if they aren't the right thing. I will probably try a few of their designs. This means I have to acquire one of those push up corset things of my own...

Tracy also pushed me to get going on the website, and did a bunch of the design/HTML herself for me to upload, which got me to make a wiki page for the bridesmaids, so that is under way as well. I need to program an RSVP app, but I have several months before that's needed. I have to send lists to my girls who are planning the rehearsal dinner and the shower/engagement party and researching hotels for out-of-towners. So there's lots to do.

Also, today I finally photographed several skeins of yarn I have been meaning to put up on my Etsy store, and I listed two of them. I'm trying to space them out a little bit, to try and maximize the exposure putting up new items briefly gets you on Etsy.

I also spun some yarn last night while listening to a book on tape - I connected my iPod to the tuner (AUX setting) and listened to it thru the stereo - One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson. I read her first book, Case Histories, a couple years ago I guess, and really liked it. The guy who is reading the BOT is Robin Atkin Downes, who does all the different voices, and is hilarious. Also, it's all these different accents - posh and street English, as well as Irish and a variety of Scots. Ladies and men. Very well done and entertaining. I recommend it. (Mom, if you want me to send you the CDs let me know.) I got about 2/5 of the roving spun while I listened. It's really lovely roving by pigeonroofstudios, one of my favorite wool dyers.



It's called PANSIES, and it's just gorgeous. And the yarn is spinning up beautifully as well. I can't decide whether to ply it or leave it as a laceweight single. I'm getting better at spinning consistent weight. If I ply it, it'll muddy up the color, whereas it's pretty nice as a single. We'll see. I took a picture but it failed to capture any of the color variations going on.



The last thing I spun was somewhere between sock and sport weight, a 2-ply, and I feel proud of it. It's shetland wool. I washed it and another skein I spun of camel/silk, a 2-ply sport weight, yesterday and both are almost dry now.



Oddly enough, they are almost exactly the same color. But have very different hands. The silk is on the right, the wool on the left. This is what the one on the left was spun from:


LEAF MOLD, also from pigeonroofstudios

The skein on the right is 50% Baby Camel / 50% Tussah Silk from Spirit Trail Fiberworks. I don't have a picture, but if you follow that link, you can see all the fabulous blends she sells.

I also have this on deck:


WINTERBERRY, also from pigeonroofstudios

Pigeonroofstudios is Krista McCurdy's fiber business. She sells through Etsy, as well as at Article Pract, a fiber store in SF, and recently I heard from various sources that she had a highly successful booth at Stitches West. I can't really overstate how much I admire her dyeing skills. I recommend going to her sold items list and scanning through all the gorgeous wool and yarn she has sold to get a sense of her range. Obviously, I'm a huge fan. My big regret is that nobody sells her stuff on the East Coast. It's hard to get, and items tend to get snapped up from her Etsy store as soon as she posts them. As a former painter, I'm very appreciative and not a little envious of her skills as a colorist; as one who's done only a little bit of dyeing so far, I know how hard it is to do even passably, and she makes it look so easy. I wish I could get the same results in roving that I was able to get in my wall pieces, but oil paint on plaster is a hugely different medium, and I have a long way to go before I will have anything like that kind of control. And I still have a ton of fear, which is so unhelpful.

In the meantime, I can appreciate the work of artists like Krista McCurdy, Sundara, about whom I've waxed floridly fannish in the past as well, and Jennifer Heverly of Spirit Trail Fiberworks, whose fiber club I recently joined. She does amazing work as well.

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My parents both have bad bad colds and I am sending out some good healing vibes their way. Y'all get better soon! I love you!