Rain, Rain Go Away ...

It looks like I have been totally defeated on the biking front this week. Tuesday morning, the weather folk were predicting rain for late in the day. Keeping my fingers crossed, I tossed my bike in the car and loaded a bag with appropriate clothing and helmet. Schelped the bag into my office only to see the rain start at noon.

Being lazy, I left the stuff in the car and in the morning heard that it was going to be clear all day -- so I brought the bag from the car back into my office. To be told that my 6:00 ladies gathering had been moved to 4:30.

Today it is raining and tomorrow it is not supposed to break 45 degrees and will be very windy. Thft!

So the weekend plans are now as such:

1. Get on the trainer as soon as this post is done.
2. Spin some more cotton -- only 7 grams left of the colorful stuff.
3. Laundry (with some spindle spinning while washing / drying).
4. Take Squidette and her ever growing feet for shoes and other girl stuff.
5. Make more progress on Squidette's blanket -- the yellow has now been broken with the purple and there are now 3 skeins of yarn in use, going to 4 by the end of the evening (3 of them yellow).
6. Synagogue knitting group.

Yes, I really do expect to do it all.

Tooth Fairy Shenanigans

Seems that a tooth was lost in this family yesterday but I am only just finding out now. Why? My children (and husband) seem to be trying to trap the tooth fairy. I'm gathering the pieces to the story as left in the letter that the Tooth Fairy delivered and as dragged out of my family.

Best I can figure is that Little Squid lost a tooth in school, went to the Nurse and got some sort of container. What kind, I can't tell you since I never saw it.

The tooth fairy apparently appeared last night and, to use her words, "searched high and low" for it. Apparently she even looked under the rug.

Tenacious lady fairy.

The tooth was ultimately located under my pillow.

** blink, blink **

The letter was left at Little Squid's place at the table and the payment was left in the freezer. Where Little Squid failed to see it. But Squidette did.

Despite all of this evidence, they still seem to think that I am the tooth fairy. I'm dumb struck. How could they still believe this? And why would they doubt me.

The two of them are whispering at the table as I type this. Thft!

Oh, and I was woken very early by something moving my pillows around. I think the Tooth Fairy is losing her touch.

Cover Your Head! And Climb that Mountain!

I had to bite my tongue yesterday. It is my habit to, on cold or rainy days, to nag students to cover their heads before heading out. (I also nag them to zip their jackets and put on their gloves.)

As I was about to suggest that they cover their heads, I took a second look at the group I was ready to nag. Religious young ladies. With their heads already covered. D'oh.

***

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of introducing Erik Weihenmayer. Our students had read his book ahead of time and knew what to expect but, I have to admit, I had not.

Erik is a mountain climber. A blind mountain climber. And skier. And ice climber. Dang!

I have to admit that I am a cynic and when I hear that an "inspirational" speaker is coming, I tend to run in the opposite direction as fast as I can. I am so glad that I stayed for this one. It wasn't that his talk was inspirational in the "you can do it, go, go go" kind of way. It was the story. It compels you to look at your own life and say "gee, I can't do that but I can do this better.

The points he makes about setting up systems and surrounding yourself with people who you can trust, about building strong teams -- those are things that stick with you.

The introduction was supposed to be made by someone else. I am SO glad that I had this opportunity.

In Like a Lamb

March March March March ...

It was so nice today that I ran out for lunch without my coat on and even stayed out long enough for my glasses to change color.

Yesterday we took Squidette's bike out for a shakedown ride and she decided that she LOVES it. Then we realized that Little Squid's bike frame is really the same size as the rest of ours and we are now trying to figure out why we didn't get him a Friday when we got his folding bike two summers ago. I suspect that he will not have to wait for his thirteenth birthday for his Bike Friday. And, if that is the case, then I guess that Squidette's bike will no longer count as her 13th birthday / Bat Mitzvah present (yes, many months early). Hmmm ...


Meanwhile, on the knitting front ...I'm 3 inches from starting the centerpiece. That means more interesting knitting. To break the boredom of 2o plus inches of plain stockinette, I give you ... leafy lace edgings. 23 stitches on either side leaving only 224 stitches of boring stockinette.
3 skeins of yellow down ... lots more to go.

A Bit of Family History

While on a double date with my parents the other night (seeing Avenue Q with your father is just a little weird), my father mentioned that my Zedda (grandfather) used to work in 305 Seventh Avenue.Zedda was a furrier back in the days when wearing fur wasn't evil. My dad describes him as a very powerful man who could lift a stack of pelts as easily as you might lift a telephone book.

That's not how I remember my Zedda -- by the time I was on the scene, Zedda owned a stationary store in Queens. We'd go by every so often to visit. I remember the greeting cards and the assortment of general stuff in the store. There was candy, too, but I only really discovered that as a teen when, popping in on my own, Zedda stocked me with some goodies for a youth group trip.

I tried to see what history this building holds but was unable to find much. It is not considered to be architecturally interesting enough for my favorite NYC architecture website and a basic google only gets me some of the businesses in the building. Sorry! It is, however, a piece of family history and I will never walk by it again without thinking about my Zedda.

A Home In New York City

Today's New York Times has a great article on the rarity that is affordable housing in New York City. I am lucky in that I live in one of these "one in a million" apartments.

In the heart of New York City is a bastion of "middle class" housing, the Penn South Co-ops. Just south and west of Midtown. Barely North of the West Village and walking distance to oh so much of this wonderful city.

I am not paying through the nose for this privilege, I just got lucky.

Back when my mother-in-law taught at Humanities High School, she heard about "the list." "The List" was the waiting list at our complex. Our community was built with the backing of what is now the ILGWU. Apartments were priced so that a teacher, a firefighter, a garment worker, could afford to live near their jobs in comfort and dignity. Not only were they priced that way, a covenant was entered into with the state so that you could only get into the complex if your income fell within a certain range. When you left the complex, you sold your apartment back at the same price that you paid. Yup, no profit. As a matter of fact, we took a small loss when we moved from a 2 bedroom apartment to a 3 bedroom. (They called it a "restoration" fee.)

A fly over of our complex shows enough green space to give a modern real estate developer heart palpitations. (Just think of how many more apartments you could squeeze in here!)

Many of the tenants, yours truly included, still adhere to the beliefs that founded our complex -- that there should be affordable housing for the masses. When our current deal with the state runs out in a few years, our family will vote (if given the option) to not go market rate. I want to keep Penn South for the masses. For the people who do the day to day work in this city, keeping it running. My neighbors include firefighters, nurses, teachers, maintenance workers and subway motormen.

On Monday, I will share the Times article with my younger staff members. The ones who have not already moved out to New Jersey in order to find affordable homes. The lists still exist and people still get lucky. I just want to share the "wealth."

What do YOU think?

I think that he looks almost prepubescent.

What do you think?

Speak up now.

We're waiting ...

The New Arrival

We were sitting, quietly eating out evening meal when the doorbell rang ...

What could it be?

A tire?

???

Ta Da!

Let's all welcome the newest set of wheels for the Family Squid. Squidette's new Bike Friday in Candy Apple Red. (With a green adjustable stem to be replaced by late spring with a custom fit Candy Apple stem.)

Rats!

What am I going to do with these guys? I was thinking of wearing them to Purim dinner but Purim is not a gruesome kind of holiday ... so they will probably stay in storage until Halloween.

Or maybe I'll just wear them around NYC and be "avant garde."

Oh, and I had fun saying "just let me finish more more Rat's a$$." I'm easily amused. Kit from Morehouse Merino.

More Spinning

It snowed on Friday. Enough fell that the kids wanted to go sledding. While I love watching the kids sled, the slog to and from the sledding hill (by foot and by subway) and the standing in the cold, really does not do anything for me. So ... when Mike so nicely offered to take the kids on his own, so that I could finish the taxes, I jumped for joy. Sort of. Then I finished the taxes. And then I prepped some spinning ...

We started with 195 grams of osage and cochineal dyed Corrieadale from Handspun by Stefania (found the receipt in the bag). This is an excellent match for the purply stuff (cochineal dyed ccorriadle) from the other day.


Imagine all of this now spun into a lovely, somewhat uneven, handspun looking singles. 2.5 bobbins worth. It is not yet plyed because all of that longdrawish spinning got me hunkering for some real long-draw spinning. So, when I finished the singles, I also switched gears to my charka and some cotton.
Imagine one more spindle full of cotton. About 4 grams worth with 12 to go. The plan (don't laugh) is to triple ply it, after all three spindles are full, and then eventually knit a very light weight summer top. Right now I think I will do a regular 3 ply and not my usual Navajo in order to mute the colors a bit and make for less obvious striping. The color repeats are VERY long and the thinness of the single would make for huge stripes. So, I'm thinking something along the lines of the Trekking yarns with their three plys changing colors one at a time. That said, this will take a long time with lots of dedicated spinning, to finish, so don't look for it anytime soon.

Monsters!

The latest issue of Craft encouraged the creation of monsters. Seemed like a good idea to me so I passed the issue off to my monster (Little Squid) and he got busy. Once the first new monster had entered our home, Squidette got into the act and now we have a whole herd of them!

GOOGLES

Name: Googles

Gender: Male

Personality: Googles is a cuddly monster who likes to read. He loves puzzles and strategy. His favorite game is sticks. This game is similar to battleships except a lot more mathy and each square has a number. When someone makes a guess and they are wrong, the opponent says the answer following equation, x * y ** 2. (x = guess, y = placement of stick) the sticks then would be moved up to 4 squares. Googles would like to have a book to read every night and would like to go outside at least once a week.

TALK-EYE

Name: Talk-eye

Gender: Male

Personality: Talk-eye loves dark places and is very active. He loves to do staring contest and always loses. He communicates in low grunts as he has no mouth. He will get irritable if you do not give him somewhere dark to sleep. and remember, he's always watching ...

SKEE

Name: Skee

Gender: Female

Personality: Skee is a small but determined monster. She always does what she can to get her way. Skee is slow to trust new people but when she does trust them, she never stops. Skee is an outdoors monster. She needs to get outside at least once every 2 days and she loves sports. She loves the snow and will do almost anything to get out in it. She loves to read and wants to read every day, but if she can't, she won't force it. She hates to draw.

Skee's favorite food is ice cream. She could eat it all year round.

NARU

Name: Naru

Gender: Female

Personality: Naru is a quiet monster who is full of energy. She loves to jump around and is quick to trust new people. Naru has an acute sense of things and can tell if something is wrong and will let you know.

Naru likes to be outside, but she hates the rain and snow. She loves windy clear days and if she sees a bunch of dark clouds in the sky and hears thunder, she would run inside and hide under the covers.

Naru likes to draw quietly. She rarely talks, sh o that is her way of communication. She can talk, though, but she chooses not to talk to most people, only to the people or monsters she really trusts and loves. Naru's favorite food is marshmallows. She loves rice crispie treats as well.

Spinning Through the Week

May I present roughly 800 yards of Berrilicious Merino. Dyed as roving by Dave and spun by your favorite Mama Squid.Berrilicious is a sport weight, 3 ply done in my favorite Navajo method. I just love the rhythm of Navajo plying. Plans? I want to find a nice fair isle cardigan or vest pattern. No steeks pleases. Right now I am debating the Spools pattern from Handpaint Country, modified to avoid cutting. I am not afraid of steeking, per se, just of my habit of making things too big and having to go back and reknit -- which is not a possibility if half the yarn is in tiny pieces. Not with my precious hand spun, please. I'll take suggestions ...

Next on the wheel was the rest of the plummy wool.
I predrafted it all, after first dividing the roving into 16 roughly equal parts, and spun it up over 2 days. Pictures of the finished skeins in a day or two when I need room in the bathroom again.
Papa Squid was amazed at the pile of roving and decided to have some fun.

Now both my wheels are empty and next up is the matching orangy roving. I spun the last of the plummy stuff using a modified long draw and it spun up so quickly that I may be deluding myself as to how fast the orangy stuff will spin up.

Meanwhile, I have not been the only creative Squid this week. Look at what Papa made!

(The kids' monsters will debute, probably, tomorrow. They have some text to write up in order to properly describe their creations. But first and foremost, we have snow to play in!)

In Search of the Tunacorn

For several weeks, our family has debated the existence of the Tunacorn. Mama Squid is firmly in the "nope, doesn't exist" camp while the rest of the family are all for it.

With the premise for our adventure now established, your friendly, neighborhood Squid set out to determine its existence once and for all.

Off to the American Museum of Natural History -- a favorite stomping ground -- where we consulted with Dum Dum.
Nope, he doesn't know where the tunacorn is.
We then asked the Elephants ... nope, they didn't know either. So much for the elephants famed memory.Hey! Mr. Whale! Do you know where the tunacorn is? What about you, lizard head?

Maybe the museum's computers can help.Hey guys! Where's the tunacorn?!Nope, cool looking, but not a tunacorn.

The tunacorn!? Or not.Hey! Whale! I thought you didn't know where the tunacorn was! He was right in front of you!

And so ends our search.

End result: three Squid convinced of the existence of the tunacorn. One skeptic still at large.

First Fruits

I was thinking of teasing you and waiting until the end of the week to post my spinning pictures but I'm not that mean. And I needed to get the, now dry, yarn out of the bathroom to make room for the freshly washed yarn. And Maria is coming. So I needed to get the, now dry and documented, yarn tucked away where I feel it belongs.

So here it is. Corriadale purchased from Stefania's Handpaints, two years ago at New York Sheep and Wool. It is a lofty, two ply, worsted weight and is not totally evenly spun. There is more of the roving in the stash and I think that will be my next spinning project. It is, as Dave calls it, "chubby" yarn -- at least for me. Recently, I've taken Dave's approach to predrafting and have been doing a very large amount (though not all) of it before sitting down to spin. My prior approach was to draft out length of roving, spin, draft, spin, etc. Basically, since I do not spin very often, I did not want to wind up with lots of delicate, predrafted stuff loose in the apartment. My new approach is actually forcing me to spin more since I still do not want to have the predrafted stuff around for any length of time. Too many bodies in this place to accidentally mess it up.

Behind the yarn, in the photo, is a bit of the Rat Scarf. 3 rats down, 5 to go.

Quiet Week

So far we have done very little, this break. After Saturday's activity, I was exhausted and opted to spend Sunday in the apartment. The kids were generous and kind of offered to do the laundry, so I let them and, in the burst of energy that followed, organized the files for the taxes and did a decent amount of spinning and some knitting.

Monday saw a quick trip to Old Navy to outfit the rapidly growing Little Squid with new pants. Unfortunately they only had 2 pair in his size. Yup, only 2 pair. I guess a trip to the uptown Old Navy is in order before the week is out -- that or let my kid continue running around in high waters. Some plying and a smidge of knitting got done. Also some crochet as I finished the blanket my synagogue knitting group was working on.(I only joined and edged it, not one of those blocks is my handi-work. Our ladies do great work!)

Today was equally low key with only a solo trip a few blocks away to get eyes for the monster that my monster is sewing. More plying occurred and the berrilicious yarn is now skeined and drying from its bath. Pictures in the next day or two. I also started a rat-scarf.

Tomorrow, the museum is our goal and maybe lunch out as we dodge Maria. At some point during this week I may actually do the taxes now that they are organized. Meanwhile, the kids are making monsters and doing some small depletion of my fabric stash.

Meanwhile, on with our quiet week.

Emerging from the Fog

I had a rather long winded post written yesterday but it was mostly a whine about how this flu has taken me down. Then I got my second wind and managed to do quite a bit of spinning. So I deleted the post. I think this virus is finally on the run.

As for the spinning -- I'll have pictures by the end of break. I finished the Ingeo singles and will two-ply them later this week. Meanwhile I started Navajo plying my Cabin Cove Berrilicious. Yum!

Yup, I said break. It is mid-winter recess here in NYC and we are off. No traveling this year, just some quiet at-home time. Time to recover in body and mind. We have two planned excursions -- one the the Museum of Natural History (probably Wednesday when Maria is here) and one to the dentist.

Time to do some serious relaxing!

Expensive Tastes

Life just got more expensive around here.

Let me explain ...

For many years, Mike and his Mom had a couple of subscriptions to series at Carnegie Hall. When Mom died, I inherited her half of the subscription and learned just how wonderful live classical music can be.

Last year saw one night when Mike was not feeling well. Instead of going alone or selling the ticket, I took Squidette. We saw Sarah Chang and Squidette was entranced. We only stayed for half of the show, but that was enough.

Last week, when Mike was too sick to go, I once again took Squidette and she, once again, had a great time.

So ... when it looked like we might not have childcare lined up for last night's concert by Joshua Bell, we spoke to the kids and then purchased two more tickets. One set, the subscription, was in the "orchestra," the other ... in the next to last row of the uppermost balcony.

Little Squid joined me, way up high, so that he would have an unobstructed view. (I was the chosen parent because Papa Squid is afraid of heights and I love my husband.) From the first note to the last, Little Squid was entranced. He was even humming one of the themes as we walked to the subway afterwards.

No more will we be able to buy just two tickets for Carnegie. From now on, our subscriptions will be for four.

***

I can now honestly say that there is no difference in sound quality from the first seats in the hall and the last seats in the hall. But the experience is still vastly different. Our tickets WILL be down low!

Ninja Warrior!

Squidette was just given the choice between practicing her violin or practicing for Ninja Warrior. She chose Ninja Warrior ... until her fingers slipped off her door frame.

Untangling

Over the last few weeks I have started in on a project that will take a few months to complete. It involves untangling and sniping bits and pieces while making new connections. Today I refreshed some old connections in hopes of securing the new ones. It's a bittersweet process but I am glad that I finally started it. Wish me luck!

Dark, Mumbly Goodness!

My mother-in-law and I used to refer to a certain genre of t.v. shows as "dark, mumbly shows." Those are the ones that are dimly lit and where the characters all speak in low, hushed tones. Programs in this category include Numbers, Studio 60 and my all time favorite ... The West Wing. I absolutely LOVE to work out to The West Wing and for a while, Bravo was airing 4 episodes every Monday. I'd DVR them and then work out to them on the weekends, promptly erasing them to make room for more. Then Bravo stopped airing the episodes regularly and I switched to the Muppet Show DVDs . These worked for a while, until two things happened. One, I started working out for longer then the 24 minute episodes and two, I ran out of unviewed shows. This left me jonsing for The West Wing again.

Look what my sweetie got for me!If I wasn't feeling so crummy, I'd work out right now!