Sleeves and Thurber

Just take a look at my Feedjit over below on the right. Someone, someone with an IP in Somerville, Massachusetts, seems to be frequenting the environs here at Stacie's Adventures. Almost every single day! And I know I'm not that interesting! A stalker perhaps?

It is possible that TWO someones might be doing that, but I am going to assume for now that it is DD#2, Singing Daughter (the second might be her BF, Piano Man). I think DD#2 might be wondering if her mama is ever going to get back to her Gryffindor sweater.


Yes!

These are the two sleeves, being knitted simultaneously, with a Thurber dog book end gracing them so elegantly.

Not that I've gotten much knitting done this week, rather little actually. But when I got going, I made real progress.

Did I mention Thurber? I am a crazed JT nut, and regularly read his essays in the bathroom.

That is no slight upon his humor or writing style.

Presently I have been guffawing at My Life and Hard Times, though the stories sometimes start to seem quite similar to each other. Thurber thought nothing of sacrificing his family members' reputations as sane individuals if it would make for a good joke.

To wit: He describes in "The Night the Ghost Got In" that his mother on the second floor decided the only way to alert the neighbors and get them to call the police was to throw a shoe at their bedroom window, which of course shattered and woke them in a panic. (That's not the character assassinating part.) A few minutes later, Thurber says (assuming his typically self-promoting heroic son role), she "made as if to throw another shoe, not because there was further need of it but, as she later explained, because the thrill of heaving a shoe through a window glass had enormously taken her fancy. I prevented her." The quiet understatement of those three words makes it that much richer.

In fact everyone in his family seems a bit dotty (or a lot senile) except James.

Here's a nice link if you're interested in the whole catalog of options in his published works. I just pick up old copies at yard sales and used book stores.























Now, look closely at this photo below.
Can you see right in the middle a small green Satsuma tangerine baby? As they say on cuteoverload.com, Ahn.

It's starting to seem quite promising for a bumper crop this year, come early December. On good years, they are so juicy and sweet, not to mention that you can just zip off their skins, and that Satsumas have NO SEEDS, that it's just like eating a little bit of paradise every single day. Until they are all gone in early January. For now, though, we get to watch the small green fruits grow larger and turn lighter, green mixed with orange, and then orange, and then time to start testing them (DH takes this job very seriously), and finally, a big bowl of them on the table at all times.

Ahhhhh.

Must get dinner going so I can knit this evening while DH and I watch something on TV.

Happy knitting, happy autumn, and happy Thurbering, all!

All men (and, one would hope he thinks, women) should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why. --James Thurber

Pictures at 11--NOT!

In the interests of fair disclosure, no pictures in this post. I haven't gotten any knitting done this week, with grading and coming down with a cold.

The intersection of a weekend with friends in the Wine Country + a nasty virus that attacks hapless teachers of young students = I stayed home, sick. DH was able to go though--hurrah! Last night, as he told me of their winery visits and the different wines he really liked, I was so jealous. He thought to console me with news of his bottle purchases, and that is nice, but wine tasting with friends is so much fun. And with Greg and Connie, we always laugh so much--they will be good for DH's immune system. 8^)

Speaking of DH, his results indicate that his lymphoma is about 95% eradicated by the six chemo sessions. [Cheers, balloons flying upward, confetti raining down.]

The remaining two areas (one under his arm and one in his gut) while not gone, are much smaller. Many factors go into the decision what to do now. They could continue for two more treatments BUT overdoing those chemo drugs means they may not be helpful at all in future. Not treating him may mean a relapse much sooner than they (or we!) would prefer. So . . . both his oncologist and the Stanford Oncology Dept. bigwigs say that he should continue on one of the drugs, Rituxan, for 2 years; this involves treatment every six months, once a week for four weeks. It's actually not of the slash-and-burn chemo variety, but the monoclonal antibody that has no unpleasant side effects for DH. The docs call it "Vitamin R." So this line of thinking sounds great.

Following that? If no new tumors develop during that time, and these areas are not changed or get smaller, then he would probably be done with any sort of drug therapy. We just have to wait and see. So he says it's time to go out and live his life, which is what he did in going to the Wine Country this weekend.

At the risk of starting to whine, I will say that I wish I was out there living life with him too right now. But there will be other weekends (maybe next weekend! maybe the one after that!) and here's some sour grapes (yuk yuk): the wineries are in the middle of the crush right now so some of their winery stops were a bit understaffed, or wines to try, limited to two or three.

Doesn't it seem that I really should go knit something and get over my funk? 8^)

Happy knitting all, and Amanda, I'm glad we were able to say hi over the ravelry fence. Missed you over the summer! Knit something and blog about it!

So much to catch up on!

Been knitting mindlessly when we get movie time, DH and I, since school began. My MIL is here staying with us again, and has been a wonderful, patient "Ruby the kitchen maid," as well as accompanying her son through scans and attending a picnic with him for Team in Training (Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's great fundraising marathon groups).

Yep, I'm working on baby blankets. It seems ironic to have knitted so much on these items when we're in the midst of oven-like weather. Seriously, 100+ temperatures most days (translating into 90+ in my classroom), has all left me pretty thick-headed and blah. Weather should improve after tomorrow. Head of school has finally gotten the memo about our misery. Next heatwave is likely to be next spring, so they have several months now to get something in place that works better than a ceiling fan (which was the stopgap, and along with three other fans, only brought the temps down into the high 80s).


But when at home, knitting in air conditioned rooms has been relaxing. I'm just knitting up Baby Burrito Blankets for upcoming hatchlings. One in "Be Mine" (Patons) and the other an ice aqua Berroco "Plush." Slight cost difference!! But both are lovely and cushy, and stretchy. I think of them as "BBB's" because, remember when you bring home a newborn and all he/she wants is to be wrapped up tight for the first week or so? Well, these will be perfect for that, and warm besides. We had some thermal waffle fabric blankets when ours were at this stage, and they wrapped up tight but weren't warm. OK, that didn't matter, since all our girls were born at the end of the summer, but these babies will arrive in the winter!

DMIL has also been knitting, on her epic blanket for DH. It is now almost framed in seed stitch, and she is working outward from that frame to complete it. Pictures when complete!

I have the sleeves to finish on Singing Daughter's Quidditch sweater, and then the seaming and neckline, but that will just have to wait a few weeks for a knitter with the brains to think while doing the stitches. Right now, that ain't me!

Did I mention that I have not been in full possession of my faculties? The other morning, while DH slept, I was getting dressed for work, quietly and with the goal of not waking him. It was actually almost dark (fall has arriven!) so I hunted for my brown sandals in the closet, and found one, and gradually realized I couldn't find the other. Rooted around for a minute and then, aha, there it was. Put it on, went to school, did some work, and then, glancing down at my feet, I saw that I had done this--




Middle schoolers love a good oops, so I guess I provided it for them. I felt so embarrassed and sheepish about it at first that it was like being in junior high again myself--I wanted to race home and get the mistake fixed. But that was not to be, and all day I got several good laughs out of it. I would conclude that one possible lesson learned is "Don't buy the same shoes in different colors," but hey, when you have foot problems as I have had, if you find something comfortable, you get it in three colors!!

Cancer update: DH had scans, as I mentioned, last week, and now the results are to be passed on to Stanford's Oncology Dept. for a thorough review. Tomorrow we get to find out preliminary results (if not next treatment options) from his own oncologist, but we are pretty sure the lymphoma is not completely eradicated. I'll update with more when we know more. DH is keeping pretty positive, and we are both just doing the next thing, the Zen approach to so much in life.

In other news: Meanwhile, World-Saving Daughter is now engaged to her swain from San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, but has returned to Connecticut to school for her last year of undergraduate studies. She left him her Skype headset so that they can see each other while talking, to make the miles seem fewer. She goes back to Mexico in November over her longish Thanksgiving break to spend it with him, and with his family. She tells me it's 73 days, but who's counting?

We expect she will be living in Mexico for at least the next two years, doing research for the first year and in a Master's program the second. All by itself that is a lot to adjust to, but the idea that she is a grown woman deciding to cast her fate/lot with someone we haven't ever met, well, it's strange. Not bad, just an adjustment. DH pointed out that since having met Francisco del Carmen Martinez Martinez, she is the happiest we have ever seen her as a young woman, so that counts hugely in his favor. 8^) Did I mention he has a degree in electrical engineering? (DH is a mechanical engineer. So that must also count in FDCMM's favor.)

Even so, Dad asks why they have to marry (isn't it hilarious to live in a new era when parents want their daughter not to marry, even if it means that she is shacking up with her BF anyway--the times they have a'changed!!), and at present the marriage date is slightly open-ended, but they are aiming for next summer. A traditional wedding in the clothing of that town (apparently in Mexico, weaves and styles are precisely delineated by your town or region), in the Catholic church (this is a development for our nondenominational, not-certain-she-believes daughter!), followed by a second small wedding here in Cali in her parents' own back yard (a tradition in my husband's family, according to WSD, but it's a tradition only begun with our own marriage 29 years ago!).

Life is certainly full of the unexpected, and it is lovely when the unexpected is a wonderful, happy surprise. So at present, we work toward a way to get together and meet Paco (his nickname) at Christmastime, as well as hope that DH's health will allow for some travel.

Enough for now. I'm am getting too parenthetical. 8^) Hope it's pleasant weather where you live, and that you are getting in plenty of good knitting time.

"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them."
-- George Bernard Shaw