…With the googly eyes glued on to either side of the seam to give it that certain Frankensteinian je ne sais quoi.

Or eye. Lost one in the bottom of the box a few years ago.

You can never plan right–but you can never plan on being stingy, sometimes it’s lots and lots of kids. I decided one 150-piece Costco bag was probably enough, though.

Tonight it was just two nice dads saying thank you, looking me in the eye and wishing me a Happy Halloween and meaning it, with their three tiny princesses, one of whom needed me to turn off the loud scary green “Happy Halloweeeeeeeen” rubber hand before she dared reach into the candy bowl. One little boy. Don’t remember his costume, all I noticed was that sweet little face that had clearly been coached to take one just one.  I thwarted all their training.

And with them was a sullen young teen who had either gotten dragged along to keep an eye on him, or maybe was determined to still get his share of the loot in defiance of how much he’d grown in the past year, a combination of the above–whatever. I’ve had four teens, I recognized his look that didn’t quite dare to dare me to challenge his right to be there.

Instead I laughed, “Sure, go ahead,” when he looked at me, and held the bowl of candy out to him too and held it and held it to make clear that he, like the little kids, was just plain welcome to all he wanted–it’s all about having a good time, and I was glad they were making memories together. (With a strong bit of Take it Take it Please Take it!) I was grateful to them for reminding me just how magical all this is for little kids: it’s more real for me when I actually get to see them getting to pretend and wave their wands and stay up late and be all dressed up and be so excited about it all. And candy too! Grownups are so nice!

Had I known they were going to be the only ones who were going to come, they wouldn’t have needed to knock on another door all night. On the other hand, I stayed on the dads’ good side. Pretty much.

The boss came.

The idea the other guy floated yesterday about maybe having to jackhammer the entire length of the house? Not so much. The boss ran his camera down and showed me the view on his screen: he’d been able to cut through some of the tree root from the inside and he got things going for now, but there was more there and it was only going to grow; he was going to have to get a permit and whack this big root coming from the flowering pear out front and replace that pipe it was breaking into.

Yup. My tree. And it looked so innocent, holding tight to its snowy-white blossoms through two solid weeks of rain, something it’s never done before.

And then after that root canal, we’ll be done with seeing the plumber as often as the dentist.

The new toilet is in, everything is working, and I can’t tell you how glad I am that all this waited to happen till after I got better.  Taking my long-awaited shower, I thought of all the people in Japan still waiting for theirs.

I went off to Purlescence and knitted among friends tonight in quiet celebration for how good I have it. It felt so good to be back, and they are all such good people there–it had been three weeks and I had missed them keenly. (And Fon, your copy is signed now and going off from there in the mail tomorrow.)

At least I got a small shawl project finished while I waited for them to be done and gone. I have to put the word “plumber” in the post here just so next time I do a blogsearch to see how long it’s been, I’ll be able to find it.

Why I was pouring water over my hands over the azaleas in the dark a few minutes ago, to get the sticky off my hands after scooping ice cream, because boy did the evening call for ice cream:

We’re going to need to install a new toilet, ma’am, I’m so sorry. In the morning. We’re going to have to come back. We broke the toilet.

You broke. The toilet.

Yes, ma’am, I’m SO sorry.

So… (After their two hours of work) are the other ones usable now?

No, ma’am, I don’t think so.

(Just covering all my bases here.) So can I take a shower in the morning?

No,  ma’am, I don’t think so. (He probably wanted to scream in frustration, Are you CRAZY? There’s a hole in the floor! But I hadn’t seen that yet.) But my boss, he’s the one who came last time, he’ll be over first thing in the morning any time you want him to come. Um… Are you good friends with your neighbors?

I winced as I guffawed and he groveled, I’m so sorry, ma’am!

Winter break: when you read the Sheldon comics start to stop. It’s a Sheldon-seen tradition.

I need me a duck to guard my stash. I’d have to draw it a skein-atic diagram of where it’s all tucked away around this house, though, and then it would come to this.

(See? All this research that’s already been done for you!)

Right, then. Off to go play Upwords with my kids while they’re still home on break.

His plane was late but that just meant I could go to Knit Night and afterwards go help pick him up, too. (Saying a prayer along the way for all those people in all those cars (six?) with all those rescue crews at work in the other direction on the bridge, it looked like at least one of the cars totally spun out in heavy traffic–slow DOWN, people, the weather is bad, it’s not worth the speeding! ‘Tis the season, you want everybody to be able to celebrate when you get there!)

John’s home, John’s home!

Stepping away for a moment from the intensity of a new knitting project…

So. I have this cane. It’s made from sassafras wood, it’s spotted and hand carved and very cool, and my childhood friend Karen found it at a shop in Williamsburg, Virginia. (Yes–that is her on the left in the original Water Turtles shawl; new book copies available at the cover price+shipping at Purlescence.) I’ve used it as my main cane for five years now; I have to admit, the upper curve in the handle is looking rather well used by now.

Shown in the picture above, I have another one from Karen, who finds just the coolest ones, this one from Africa with painted animals on it and an ankh symbol for a handle: zebras, the perfectly-colored and -spaced spots of a giraffe, it’s got it.

Some small child got entranced with it at church recently and a zebra lost an ear.  It’s not very noticeable, except to me, but, so that one got put away for special occasions for its own good. Hearing aids for wooden horses are in short supply.

I went looking today out of idle curiosity, my local shop seeming to have gone to ugly aluminum only last time I checked, and where’s the artistry in that? I say, if it’s a permanent part of your life it needs to earn it a little bit.

And so I found someone who took an old cane and had fun with it. He steampunked it!  There’s a gear here, another few there, leather added to the handle, and, of all things, a lace-up black leather corset going up the shaft. It’s really, really cool! (But I can’t buy it without seeing if it’s comfortable with my hand leaning on that metal there, and I need  35″ and have no idea how long his is.)

I tell you. With apologies to my fellow knitters, this way beats the candy-cane stocking cover that every year about this time I start to daydream about knitting it for the season. Or maybe it’s just that that idea has lost its novelty for me by now.

Hmmm… How would you decorate one?

How to get lots of knitting done:

The phone rings, giving you a time estimate so you can’t leave. Then the workers show near the end of that period, with no idea how long it will take them, so you can’t leave. Knitting kept me from constantly getting in their way and asking questions. (At that hourly rate, this is a good thing.)

It was the plumbers.   Having come here often enough by now, this time they sent a camera down the line to figure out just what was going on in there.

The guy who put in our addition put in a bend that ought not to be bent, and didn’t put in an outtake but it ought to have had an outtake. He also installed the water heater in such a way as to cause carbon monoxide poisoning, if not for the wallboard between it and our bedroom.

The inspector caught none of that. We got that water heater taken care of on our own. The pipes, well, they’re being taken care of.  Frequently.  Expensively.

Well, hey, I had some knitting I really wanted to get done.  I got in five hours straight. Ice my hands, the thing is blocking now, my shawl is done!

I apparently have been ignoring people I didn’t know I was; my apologies. My husband set up a Twitter account a year ago to post my progress from the hospital to his family–and he used my spindyeknit moniker to set it up.  So if you wanted to follow me on Twitter but never got a response, well, hey, you’re reading this; you found me!

(p.s. And thank you, everybody, for looking out for Natalie with us.)

Michelle picked Natalie up from the hospital today. She’s out.  Yay!

Meantime, replacement to fix this broken dishwasher doorhandle: $23 plus shipping (they sent us the full assembly beyond this part; we were pleased).

Time to take the door apart, remove the broken piece,  replace it and put it all back together: under fifteen minutes. The new handle is better designed.

Time for the $133 electronic panel to arrive next: I’ll know after I place the order. So much for that. But it’ll be even faster to swap out, he says, and it’s quite satisfying to be doing it ourselves.  (We’ll reserve true elation for when the darn thing works.)

Meantime, it’s funny how having something you can’t fix right now makes it feel imperative to work on something you can make do absolutely whatsoever you say–or you will frog its little loops into oblivion, so there.  I am master of the yarniverse. I doodled with some silk/cashmere in a whole new tangent and really really like what it’s turning into, even if it doesn’t look like much yet.

Now, pardon me, our local parts place closed down. PartSelect here I come again. (And if you need a new silverware tray? You want Mending Shed for that.

I now have a safe, non-working dishwasher, but at least it won’t set my house on fire. And no, Maytag did not pass along the other information to the fellow who came out–who was hesitant to work on the thing once I told him, and wanted to know, was I sure?

He was already here, so, hey. My other choice would have been to get a discount to buy a third one in a row of these, and that was so unacceptable to me and not likely an option anymore anyway the moment he stepped in the door. I do not want to add to the landfills.

I want the thing to work. Is that so hard to ask?

Turns out the last recall for a fire hazard– our previous Maytag–happened in 2007.  So that machine sitting there dead was three years old.

I really really needed me some Sea Silk time. Even if I only have half a skein of Glacier left.

Meantime, if you have a front-loading GE washing machine, those could be downright entertaining: flames shooting out the front? Every little boy’s dream!  Break out the coathangers and bring on the marshmallows!

(Ed. to add) I think the moral to the story is, when millions of people are suddenly trying to buy the same brand at once because of a recall and an offered discount and it’s on backorder while they try to make them all at once, give the local guy the fix-it job rather than risk the lag in quality controls.)

Dear Maytag:

I want you to look at this picture. No, look closer: look at that factory-installed black rubber strip. You know how it goes up and around the latch area? Supposedly?

The thing has been intermittently difficult to start ever since we got it. Do you suppose you might think of a reason why?

The last time you had a recall, you offered me a discount on a new Maytag dishwasher or a repair call, my choice. I had something wrong with mine besides what was being recalled, so I winced at having to replace one that should still have been going strong but I went ahead and did so because it seemed the cheaper option. And because you make by far the best-cleaning dishwasher out of the five brands I have owned and I wanted that. And it was quiet.  You do that part exceedingly well.

But I’m back in that boat again. A recall for house fires? Okay. The repairman is coming tomorrow to replace that heating element for you. But in the meantime, I want my dead dishwasher to start working again–and I think it should be your problem it doesn’t think it’s latching shut anymore and won’t start.  Thank you for answering my email; no, I’m sorry, unplugging it so that the electronics might be able to reset did nothing.

You can see right there where the rubber meets the rued.

Here are Glenn Nevill’s photographs, the whole scene starting at picture two taking place in one second’s time, of lunch delivery of the San Francisco falcons. Eat and run!

Meantime, one of my fellow falcon enthusiasts came over today.  I was hoping the Cooper’s hawk would make an appearance for her, but no such luck, although she did enjoy the show the birdfeeder put on.

Hilary’s the one I was looking for Edgar for.  I never did find him, but I did find some good roving to share.  She’s into needlefelting–and her work is so exquisite I wanted to run show it to my parents, especially my dad the art dealer, and exclaim, Isn’t this just so cool!

Because she came with a surprise.

She had had to trim the body down a bit, she told me, because the feet weren’t supporting it.  (It looks perfect to me!)  She’d had the proportions just so the first time.

I’ve done a very little bit of felting, but I’ve never tried anything remotely like this. You’d have to be able to visualize what you want and then know just how to make it come out like that, not to mention doing all that actual work.  It takes the eye of an artist.  My pictures didn’t quite capture it, but she got it just so right down to the toenails.

I am reminded of Sandra Boynton’s lesson on how to mold chocolate bunnies: “Take one block of chocolate, 4×4x7 feet.  Chip away all pieces that do not contribute to an overall impression of rabbitittity.” Uh, yeah.

I am just totally in awe, and totally in love with my very own little falcon perched by my left hand as I type this.  Wow. Cool. Thank you. I had it perched on my knitting books while she was here, but I think I’m going to keep it on the arm of the couch, watching me knit at my own perch.

She told me it’s a tiercel, ie, a male, tiercel meaning “third” and males being a third smaller than females.  That tummy tuck and all that.

So.  He had a hard time standing up on his feet, had to have abdominal surgery, and is thinner now but can stay up just fine now and is ready to take on my world.  My stars, could this little tiercel be any more perfect?!

His name hasn’t come to me yet.  But it will.

I typed that, looked at it, and thought, Malcolm?  Hmm. Maybe.

Hilary, you’re wonderful! And it is absolutely beautiful.

If this goes through, it means our ISP finally got its act in gear. Cloud computing isn’t supposed to rain supreme quite like that.

Thank you, everybody, for the input. After looking at that scarf all blocked and done this morning, (5.5+ x 62″ out of those 24g!) it just felt like it is wonderful the way it is–and that I should knit and offer the person the alternative of a plain cream-colored cashmere blend, her choice; it’s pretty hard to go wrong that way. (So, back to the needles, I’m not finished there yet.)

Meantime, I have a friend whose emails my Thunderbird program, for reasons unknown, has been bouncing into the spam filter lately, about every other message.  We tried to pin it down: is it when it comes from her phone? From her computer? There seemed no particular correlation and it went on for days, with me dragging her messages up to my inbox as if I could show my computer, See?  *That’s* where it goes.  See?

All seemed mysteriously well this morning after all that, and I was thinking, Oh good!  Until I did a tentative check later just to make sure the new pattern was holding.

Nope. I fired her off a note:

“And we had fun fun fun till the T-bird took the addy away.”

I think it is safe to say I am not a computer person.  (Hey you Hydes, hush!) I have stuck to my nice safe Firefox PC.

But I have been pushed around lately by the fact that a) I’ve got the falcon cam on the big monitor attached to the husband’s Mac, because b) that site crashes my Firefox Ubuntu absolutely every time. Completely. Gone to lunch, ‘bye. (Which is why this year I haven’t posted the link. Don’t worry, that’s the link to the link.)

So tonight Richard was teaching me basic stuff on his machine, like how to open a new window and why it wasn’t working when I tried to. How to change the size of the window (so help me, that was designed by someone with sharper eyes than mine.)

It’s like knitting lace: it used to be, I didn’t know how, I didn’t (I told myself) particularly want to know how, but it bugged me that it was something I couldn’t do–but it was knitting!  I eventually tried to teach myself, but at the time there was just really nothing out there and certainly nothing that told exactly how one was supposed to, say, purl, much less knit, into a yarnover of the previous row and which way one was to wrap the yarn, much less that it changed depending on what came before and what after.

Now, of course, it’s all as automatic to me as breathing, you just sit down with the needles and go:  the Barbara Walker books from the last big knitting craze of the 70’s were finally reprinted, and I made myself slog through row after row with one eye on her first Treasury of Knitting Patterns directions and the other on the work in my hands.

A swatch. Then an afghan in a simple pattern, trying to drill it into my brain while learning to read my stitches, trying to learn not to panic and what to do if I dropped a stitch, how to put it all back together when it’s not simple knit and purl but with direction and–well, you know. One dropped stitch can unravel two or three below it and then that many more again each from there, and, yeah.

And then a second afghan.  Trying to practice at it enough for long enough to make it worth the time spent learning how.

And how!, now.

So eventually I put my own book out there that prefaced with the laceknitting directions, verbal but also pictorial, that were exactly what I’d gone looking for and could not find all those years ago.

I think it’s a pretty good book. (They’re almost gone.)

But I don’t think that means I’ll ever, ever write one on my new-found expertise on using a Mac.  Trust me on this one. Truly.