Knit Sisters

Alex and I read with some interest the article in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine about couples in group marriage counseling. Well, okay, we read it with some interest and some alarm, frankly, because while it was clearly intended to leave you with the impression that marriage is a worthwhile enterprise—deep, mysterious, complex, rewarding, and so on and so forth—it also led you to the gnawing and inescapable conclusion that it is grindingly difficult.

And nearly impossible to get right.

Here’s something I got right, I believe: the neckband of my elephant sweater. This is an in-progress photo of it before I seamed the shoulder and the edges of the band. I like the crisp way the V of the V-neck turned out.

Well, crap. And here I thought that life was going to be a field of daisies, a loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou from here on out. Guess my parade just got rained out.

But seriously, we’ve only been married about two months at this point, and I think I can fairly say that I’ve never been happier. According to the therapists in this article, though, that is because at the beginning it is easier to “keep the celebration going.”

Apparently, “keeping the celebration going,” as one of them put it, is the key to long-term happiness. Since this is touchy-feely psychobabbly kind of talk, I will translate. At no extra charge!

What they mean is that you have to openly, frequently, and ebulliently take delight in your spouse’s or partner’s achievements, good qualities, and talents, remarking often and to all who will listen on the heroic qualities of your spouse, his or her exceptional cleverness and preternatural good looks, his or her recent lucrative promotion at work, and how much you appreciate the $400,000 in-ground tiled swimming pool inspired by the pools at Hearst Castle that he or she is building for you in your commodious backyard.

After a few months of this, you will have the best marriage on your block! Which will be important because you will no longer have any friends.

Elephant Sweater, the Vest Years. Alex, if you are reading, I’ll be expecting to overhear you telling everyone about the amazing achievement that this sweater represents. Feel free to embellish. The phrase “master knitter” may be a useful one in that connection.

Okay, they never said anything about boasting about a swimming pool. But they did suggest that you begin sentences, “My husband is my hero because…” That sentence could end any number of ways, of course. How about “…he got paroled early from the penitentiary over in Leavenworth because of good behavior.” Or “…he drank a whole fifth of Jack Daniels in forty-five minutes and it didn’t kill him.” Maybe “…he got in a brawl with a guy up at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally this year but he didn’t use a tire iron.” Or how about “…he was voted the area’s Most Convincing Elvis Imitator at the County Fair and he had the prize pumpkin.”

The point is, you’ve got to focus on the good in a man.

Admittedly, “keeping the celebration going” has become a running joke Chez Mad Dog, but even so Alex says we’re doing a great job of it. Mainly because we still have a case of champagne left over from the wedding at the foot of the basement stairs.

And finally…

…a completely gratuitous canted shot of elephant sweater.

Keepin’ the celebration going, people, keepin’ it going!

As you may have noticed, I pretty much never do intarsia. Okay, I never do intarsia.

So I feel the need to make a big ole whoop-de-do about this intarsia elephant I knit a couple of days back:

Humor me, will you? But truly, is it not cunning?

I happen to have taken a close-up…

…because I am especially proud of that eye, which is neither too loose nor too tight, but miraculously just right. Believe me, it isn’t skill. More like beginner’s luck.

I recognize that little malicious tree elves have messed with the tension of some of the stitches, but I remain hopeful that blocking will correct all their sins. And maybe even some of mine.

Meanwhile, from the Captain Obvious School of Package Design and Marketing, comes the text for the thirty-six pack of Mountain Dew!

Just in case you weren’t paying any attention whatsoever in math class. Or are easily amazed by simple mathematical facts.

Note that there is nothing said about a price break or it being a better deal than the smaller packages or anything of the sort. Nope. You are simply meant to rejoice in the exciting numerical truth that thirty-six is half again as much as twenty-four!

And who among us wouldn’t, really? It is, after all, the simple pleasures…

Along with all the other enchanting events of this summer—like getting married to a really incredible man on a sunny day at a lighthouse when I had previously given up all hope of getting married again at all and then having my sister make me some bang-up fancy cakes—my friend Red, the surfer, taught me how to swim in the ocean while we were in North Carolina.

I mean properly.

Those of us who grew up landlocked do not necessarily know how to swim in the sea. In fact, I was thirteen before I ever even saw the Atlantic Ocean and twenty-three before I laid eyes on the Pacific.

And at this rate, I’ll be forty-three before I finish this elephant sweater.

I do however know from soybeans and feeder corn and can, upon request, do a perfectly credible imitation of a 1970s-era radio farm commodities report, the “shipping news” of the Midwest.

The following can only be properly delivered while wearing a John Deere cap. (There is also no talking or commentary between the individual commodity listings. The basic information should be enough for you; there is no need to carry on about it or embellish it. Who do you think you are, some kind of fast-talking East Coast economist? My God man, this is Southwest Iowa, not Wall Street!)

Soybeans, up two.

(Long pause to savor this good news. Silently.)

Feeder corn, down three.

(Another long pause to allow this ominous drop to sink in.)

Milo, up four…

And so forth. It’s a kind of poetry to me. But it doesn’t teach you how to deal with waves.

Last summer, I mistakenly thought I knew how to swim in the Atlantic, which was all well and good until I got hit by a big, big wave. I mean, I stood there and got hit.

The wave broke over my head, swamped me, picked me up, turned me upside down, and smashed me on the beach. Smash, scrape, smash! I had scrapes and sandburn and a bathing suit full of tiny rocks and sand. So roundly was I dashed against the beach that there were little stones and sand in between the lining of my bathing suit and the outer layer.

So there I am sitting on the beach in a tangle of my own limbs, choking up salt water, spitting up small fish, gathering up what tiny shreds are left of my dignity, not to mention my bathing suit, and thinking, “Guess I don’t have the hang of this.”

I finished this Cherry Tree Hill sock, though. (Shown here with canine head.)

This summer, Red showed me that when a wave is about to hit you—and in particular to break right over your head—you just hold your breath, make like a fish, and dive right through it.

In two seconds, you are out on the other side, none the worse for wear and ready to work with the next wave. But that’s the key, you see, a fact that I now understand. You have to work with the wave, you can’t fight it. You can’t stand there like a oak tree and expect a good outcome. You gotta move like a fish, even though instinctively it seems like diving through a big wave like that is the first step down the path toward a drowning death.

Still life with handknit sock.

Even while we were out there diving through the waves, I was thinking that this swimming lesson could be a great metaphor for how to manage life’s difficulties. I think too often I stand there gracelessly and let life’s “waves” hit me, pick me up, and smash me against the beach and then I sit there choking and sputtering and bleeding and wondering what the hell just happened. I struggle and flail about and fight situations I should be wise enough to…dive through and let pass right over my head.

Think there’s any chance I can actually practice that maneuver instead of just bloviating about it on the blog?

Or will it be like Gabriel Garcia Marquez said of wisdom, that it always comes too late to do any good?

Um.

But I have hope. After all, look how much I learned about diving through from just one summer to the next.

I’m just back from North Carolina’s Outer Banks and readjusting to New England’s fabulous weather (90 degrees, 95 percent humidity, thunderstorms expected in the afternoon, one could simply weep…).

This afternoon, for instance, I was caught in a downpour without an umbrella and had to wring out my own hair once I had gained the shelter of the T Stop. I would have wrung out my shirt too if it wouldn’t have constituted public indecency.

Yes, New England is a place that reveals its charms—and there are in fact many—slowly. You must be patient. And it helps if you are a Calvinist.

Comparatively, the Outer Banks is an easy place to love, a magical place (as my OBX friend Geoff put it), a place that is rich in natural beauty:

The sun sets over Jockey’s Ridge.

The foam of a breaking wave on the beach.

A picturesque walk to the fishing pier.

Then, of course, there are the wonderful things one’s younger friends do, like surf:

Red catches a wave. If you haven’t surfed before, let me tell you, this is an achievement. It ain’t as easy as the Beach Boys make it sound. Remember that whole “That’s all there is to the coastline craze”? And “We’re loadin’ up our woody with our boards inside/and headin’ out singin’ our song”? Or who could forget, “When you catch a wave, you’ll be sittin’ on top of the world”? Yeah, well, only if you were born in Ojai. The rest of us are gonna be eatin’ a lot of sand and swallowin’ a lot of salt water before we’re singin’ our song or sittin’ on top of the world.

Or build a sand octopus…

…named Julie.

The Cardinal shows off his creation.

There’s all that, yes, and then there are the noble additions of humankind, like the billboard for Dirty Dick’s restaurant that is emblazoned with the legend: “I got crabs at Dirty Dick’s.”

Truly, the heart soars!

Or the surfer dude driving down Croatan Highway with his left foot out the driver’s side window and the following heartwarming message soaped onto his rear window: “Hey baby, want to ride my longboard? Lookin’ for chix…”

What can one say, but…thank heaven for little boys!

Or the tasteful mementoes, available for purchase at fine stores all along Rte. 158 and suitable for display in one’s home, of the carefree times one has spent in the OBX:

Talk about your robust Morning Blend!

And then, there is as always the knitting:

Here’s a close up of the Cherry Tree Hill Gems Merino sock, born in North Carolina, but fated to live out its life in Massachusetts.

Emerging intarsia elephant:

If you look very closely on the right, you can see his trunk.

So it’s goodbye to all that (except the knitting, of course) until next year when—with any luck at all—our friends will return, the water will be fine, the sunsets will be stunning, and the Outer Banks bazooms mugs will be cheap and easy to procure.

Next year, I’m going to have a set of four accompanied by a gift card shipped to my reprobate uncle: “Dear Uncle Armbruster, Saw these, thought of you!”

I strongly believe that we do have to do something radical about our energy consumption in this country. Strongly. Believe.

I also strongly believe that I should have more done on this elephant sweater than I do, but…

I would however be the first to admit that this is easier said than done. After all, we’re not just talking about changing people’s habits, which would be hard enough, we are also talking about an entrenched infrastructure and set of broader social habits that rests on the assumption that more or less every American has access to a car.

So it isn’t just that we’ve got these gas guzzlers on the road, it’s that there is massive technological momentum (as we call it in the science studies biz) behind the automobile. And technological momentum is extremely hard to reverse.

As an individual, you cannot reverse it. You cannot. There is literally no way to live in most parts of this country without a car. It can’t be done. So at the moment driving a car everywhere doesn’t mean that you’re part of the problem, it means that you’re part of an inescapable system.

Now I’m singling out the automobile here not because there aren’t other environmental issues, but I think from the standpoint of the individual the car is, well, the thing. What I mean is, the car drives (no pun intended…heh…heh) a great deal of the rest of our overconsumption. And that drives a lot of industrial pollution and energy consumption and so forth.

Alex and I happen to live in one of the handful of places in the country where one can be “car-free,” and we happen to be in a phase of our lives where there ain’t a lot of loose cash floating around, if you know what I’m saying, so we don’t own a car.

Although I did make this lovely ribbing. I love the way the colors look together. And also the odd way that the ripples in the fabric look a little like…Voldemort’s face. Or maybe that’s just me.

When you don’t own a car, you think very carefully about what you buy. Because you and you alone are going to get to haul it back to Chez Mad Dog on the city bus. I hasten to add that this condition does not make us morally superior to anyone else.

It just means we’re strapped.

But it has led me to reflect upon the fact that there’s just a lot of stuff you can’t buy if you don’t have a car. A lot of stores you cannot frequent—including nearly all those horrific superstores like Home Depot, Costco, IKEA, etc. A lot of large stuff you cannot haul home and hoard. Interestingly, when people learn that we do not own a car, they frequently express shock and say something like, “Oh my God, how do you do it?”

Rather like they have just learned that both of us have recently lost an arm and a leg in a tragic accident and are now stumbling about on crude, newly-acquired prostheses.

It really is not anywhere near that bad. But it is a comment on the perception that having your own ride is just downright compulsory. Even in the rare instances where it is not.

Which leads me back to the problem of said automobile. Among other things, we’re going to have to deal with the car and everything that radiates outwards and backwards and forwards from the car, and that’s going to be a tough, tough thing to do. Not impossible, but very difficult. It will have to be a systematic fix too, not a matter of a few individuals here and there deciding and being able to ride bikes or take the bus.

I’m all for the bikes and the bus, by the way, but I’m speaking here of a society-wide solution that works, one that modifies the central technology we’ve got, works with the existing infrastructure, and acknowledges people’s real needs. I myself do not have a feasible plan right now, of course, but I’m working on that… I am taking suggestions. Feel free to share your ideas.

Meanwhile, we’ll all continue our nickel-and-dime environmentalism—recycling bottles, cans, jars, mixed paper; buying green cleaning products; driving a Prius. It’s not going to be the thing that solves the problem, but at least we can feel that we’re doing something.

Want to talk about overconsumption? Look what I just bought. Cherry Tree Hill Gems Merino. And this when I was actually on a successful yarn diet…

Alex and I have recently added to our nickel-and-dime environmentalism portfolio a new washer and dryer made by Asko, a Swedish company that stresses the environmentally-friendly, energy-efficient, water-saving aspects of its machines. Our landlady brought us these over the weekend, bless her heart.

Asko. As in, “Asko not what your washer can do for you, Asko what you can do for your washer!”

Because—and I don’t mean for a minute to sound ungrateful here—the Asko washer and dryer is not like your old Whirlpool. Here’s the front of the washer:

And a close-up of the “dashboard” of the dryer:

Simple in its way, yes, but would you know how to run a load of laundry without reading the manual? Yeah. That’s what I’m saying.

So a couple of nights ago, I decide to run my first load of environmentally-friendly laundry. I read the manual for the washer. I screw up the programming a couple of times. I curse and stomp. I finally program it to run a “normal” load of dark clothes. All is well, I think.

Then I read the digital timer at the right of the display. It reads, “One hour and fifty-five minutes.”

Yep, you got that right: two hours to run a “normal” load of clothes. Green is apparently a synonym for “excruciatingly slow.”

Okay, I think, next time I’ll try the “quick” cycle. It will probably only be an hour and a half.

I dutifully come back two hours later. I read the manual for the non-intuitive dryer. I screw up the programming a couple of times. I curse loudly and impugn the name of the Swedes and their mothers and grandmothers. I cry out in anguish, “Whirlpool, why hast thou forsaken me?” Then I finally manage to program it for a “normal” drying cycle.

This time I’m less surprised when the digital timer reads one hour and twenty minutes.

I am however weeping with frustration and otherwise going to pieces quietly in the corner of the basement.

When I informed Alex that a “green” load of laundry takes three hours and twenty minutes to complete, he said, “I see it all now. The Asko machines are more energy efficient because you quickly figure out that it is faster to do all your laundry with a washboard and a mangle.”

And so it appears that in appliances as in other arenas we have a long way to go to make our ideals match up with our practical needs.

Until then, I’d hang onto your old Whirlpool.

There are times for joy and times for sorrow, times to plant and times to reap, a time to be born, a time to die, times to cast away stones and times to gather stones together.

Times to include a nice photo of your wonderful, generous father-in-law on your blog because he asked you to and he asks for so little, really.

And then there are times to hightail your sweet wazoo to the bank.

This is one of those times.

We got our deposit, with interest, back from Craphound in the form of a check. He was evidently persuaded by Alex’s not-all-that-heavily-veiled threat to haul his lying, cheapskate *ss to court and bust his miserable chops for triple damages.

Shelley also barked and growled viciously at Craphound for the entire duration of his “visit” to drop off said check, behavior that is completely out of character for her. But I think it was just her adorable, little, canine way of saying, “If my pack members leave this room, scumbag, and it’s just you and me…I’m gonna rip your throat out.”

That’s my girl!

We are now hightailing it to the bank to cash that check before Craphound gets any further larcenous ideas.

(As an aside, I would like to say that I am very impressed by my husband’s courageous poison-pen letter-writing campaign. I doubt that many of Mr. Craphound’s ill-used tenants have had the cajones to tell him exactly what they think of him and, given the power relations involved, understandably enough. Feeling powerless has a way of making you feel like you can’t do anything but go off and mutter to yourself in the corner, but I think the heartwarming and valuable lesson we have learned here is that we often have more power than we think.

Or maybe it’s just that if you look up a bunch of picky legal information, you can use it as a crowbar.

Anyway, whatever. My husband, my hero…)

Speaking of landlords, our current landlord is such an angel that she’s having a better washer and dryer installed at our house this weekend. Did we ask for this? No. The current ones are perfectly fine. She just wants to give us something better.

Did I do something really good in a previous life?

I could literally weep with gratitude. So I am making a sweater with an elephant on the front of it for her daughter. Just because I want to thank her for being so much better than called for in her role.

Right now the sweater looks like this:

A combination of Rowan’s Pure Wool DK and Debbie Bliss Rialto.

But click this link and check out the elephant design to see how cute it’s going to be: Roo Designs for Children.

I like all the designs, truth be known. I’m also very pleased with my color combination for this particular sweater:

And now, to the bank…

You probably thought that with all the hurly-burly of the wedding and the move to the dream house that I had forgotten about Minnie. Confession: I did ignore her for a while. I had decided to do her sleeves from the top down, which was fine until I got to that motif that forms the bottom of the bell.

And then…whoa boy! Trouble. Long story short, Sean and I spent a good five hours puzzling over how to reverse the motif so that it could be knitted from the top down rather than the bottom up. Easier said than done.

We puzzled and swatched and puzzled and swatched. We cursed and swatched and puzzled some more. Cursed some more.

Finally we arrived at a reasonable facsimile:

If Sean hadn’t helped me out on this one, well… I had hit my wall for frustration well before we found the solution, but he persisted. So a big thank you goes to Sean!

Given that the first sleeve was an experiment, I was initially pretty happy with the results:

Although a couple of flaws convinced me to pull it out to the underarm and take another run at it. C’est la vie. I can’t bear to have the mismatching shoulder seams AND a semi-dud sleeve all in one disastrous sweater.

So staring down the barrel of frogging (and having been dragged through a frustrating problem-solving session), I put Minnie aside for a time while I pondered whether or not we could continue to be friends.

Now, however, I am working on the second sleeve:

My ultimate plan is to model the first sleeve on the second, which I feel will be more successful. Famous last words.

One thing has gone right with Minnie, though. Well, two. The beading and the recent acquisition of the perfect buttons:

How often do you get a match like that? Made in heaven.

I’m trying to love her, but I think it is going to take time to rebuild trust.

One final note regarding the upcoming nuptials…and you heard it here first, folks: if I never hear the phrase “your special day” again as long as I live, it will be too soon.

My energy level this evening is not what one might hope, given my age and general level of fitness, and it is all because I made a very, very bad error last night involving my “bedtime reading.”

Lately, I’ve become obsessed with popular books written by doctors about the medical profession. My own dissertation research has a history of medicine/history of public health thread, my grandfather was a doctor, and I am generally fascinated with how the medical profession operates (no pun intended), so these books are a natural draw.

First I blazed through Pauline Chen’s Final Exam, about how poorly doctors and modern, scientific medicine deal with mortality and the dying patient. Very nicely crafted. Then I turned to Sherwin Nuland’s How We Die. (Keep reading this genre of books and trust me, you will notice a thematic pattern developing. And alarming thematic pattern…) Also a very interesting book in spite of Nuland’s tendency to veer nauseatingly into the realm of the maudlin from time to time.

I only accept the maudlin when it has to do with dogs.

Hey, you wanna stuffed goose? I happen to have one right here.

All this prepared me, or so I thought, for Atul Gawande’s Complications, the first of his two books about doctoring. The second just came out in hardback and is called Better.

As in, “You better not read this right before you go to bed.”

Atul Gawande is an astoundingly accomplished person, the kind of guy who makes you wonder what it is you do with your time, really, because you sure as shootin’ aren’t wringing as much achievement and just downright excellence out of every day as my man Atul. Not only is he a general and endocrine surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, he is also an assistant professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, and an assistant professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School.

His Wikipedia entry coolly notes that in addition to these prestigious professional posts, Atul “has written extensively on medicine and public health for The New Yorker magazine and the online magazine Slate. He has also written for New England Journal of Medicine. His essays have appeared in The Best American Essays 2002 and The Best American Science Writing 2002. His book, Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science was a National Book Award finalist. In 2006 he was named a MacArthur fellow.”

A MacArthur fellow. A recipient of a so-called “Genius Grant.”

That has to feel good. I wish someone would certify me as a genius.

I knit this sweater AND I’m writing a dissertation. Plus I am an amateur dog trainer and I make a very fine Jell-O salad. And did I mention that I routinely and uncomplainingly perform feats of strength like removing sunken paving stones from the yard assisted only by a shovel and a “can-do” attitude?

It’s hard to explain why I have been overlooked by the committee year after year, but you know how political these things can be.

But I digress. Let’s just say that I admire Dr. Gawande and I think his first book is quite well-written, but it is, how shall I put this?, unsparing in its use of medical detail.

Knitting detail. See, I know from detail.

You may remember that medical details are not something that I tolerate especially well. How poorly do I tolerate this kind of information? Well, I once actually fainted when a friend told me in detail about her experience of giving birth to her daughter. And you will note that I myself have no children of my own today. Just coincidence? I don’t think so.

Moving on, however, I nonetheless cannot stop reading Gawande’s book, although I learned quickly not to try to read it on my lunch break. But last night as I settled in for my bedtime reading, I thought, “What could be the harm? This is so fascinating!”

Enter the chapter entitled The case of the red leg. The case of the red leg involved a woman in her early twenties who comes to Gawande’s hospital with a red leg and to all appearances, a skin infection called cellulitis. But Gawande, being a genius and all, has a bad feeling about her red leg. A very bad feeling.

He and the other docs convince her to have the tissue biopsied and they find—brace yourselves—that she actually has necrotizing fasciitis. Yeah, the flesh-eating bacteria! Incredibly rare, incredibly dangerous, often deadly.

I don’t know about you, but…FLESH-EATING BACTERIA? Oh my God!

I should have quit reading right there. What was I thinking? Instead, I forged ahead, reading about how they decided not to amputate her leg (the standard treatment…I mean, that’s how bad these flesh-eating bacteria are, people!) and instead did four nightmarish surgeries to debride (a more genteel word for “ruthlessly cut out”) all the muscle and tissue in her leg that the bacteria had destroyed.

You can read the details for yourself. I would even go so far as to recommend this book to you.

Just take my advice: don’t read it after 4 p.m.

Work on the Back Yard of Doom continues apace! Over the weekend, Alex and I did further clearing of pernicious vines, raking up of debris, and tossing out of the veritable pile of beer bottles that our drug-dealing neighbors (yes, we lead a life of constant danger!) left behind on their back porch when they moved out in January:

Isn’t that extra special? Yeah, Corona Extra special!

These were positioned such that in a stiff wind, one or two would tumble off the edge of the porch and smash in the yard below, leaving dangerous shards of brown and green glass everywhere. How utterly delightful! I love suburban living!

Come to think of it, I’ll have a Heineken!

The worst part is, those guys never invited us to any of their parties.

Alex cleaned up all those bottles and rotting cardboard cases, because he is good and decent and well-raised, unlike your average drug dealer. In the process, he found an exciting original object for his “Cabinet of Curiousities”:

No, your eyes do not deceive you. That is a wasps’ nest INSIDE a beer bottle.

If you look down the neck of the bottle, you see this:

Dude, we wasps love livin’ in a beer bottle! It’s like, when you’re tired from buildin’ the hive, you can sip some brew and kick back. Beats the shit out of living underneath the eaves of a shed, amigo!

Or this:

Do not ask yourself, “Is it art?” The answer should be obvious.

Meanwhile, I was working down below, attempting to clear what we call “The Lost Patio of Atlantis.”

See those vaguely round depressions in the ground there? That’s what I’m talking about.

It seems that sometime in the distant past, long before we were born, someone made a strange little patio out of mysterious circular stones they purchased in the ancient agora, but over time, these stones sank and were nearly completely occluded by grass and weeds.

Q: Mama, is there really a Lost Patio of Atlantis where the ancient peoples of New England conducted their summer rites, like getting half in the bag on Sam Adams Boston Lager after a Red Sox loss and bellowing “Yankees Suck!” so that everyone in the village could hear?
A: No one knows, child. No one knows…

My original objective was to clear away all the grass, weeds, and dirt that obscured the Lost Patio of Atlantis.

I lasted about thirty minutes at that backbreaking and futile task before it occurred to me that it would be a whole lot easier (and better!) just to take the paving stones up, Roto-till the whole shebang, and replant grass.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. The Lost Patio of Atlantis was weird and, let’s face it, not that conducive to a nice yard party and/or wedding reception. In spite of its historic significance.

So I began prying the stones up with my trusty shovel, heaving them out of the ground, and stacking them against the garage. Even after living here for nearly two years, we frankly had neither any idea that they were round…

Who knew?

…nor that they weighed so much.

Here I am with my twentieth stone, propping it up with my shovel and thanking the good Lord that I lift weights on a regular basis:

A single Lost Paving Stone of Atlantis can also be used as a cheap alternative to a commercial tombstone!

My handiwork from the air:

I had quit at this point for the simple reason that I had begun to ache all over.

So. I’ve pulled up twenty stones. There are at least thirty-five left.

I can’t help but think of that line from Robert Hass’s poem Santa Barbara Road, the one where he is speaking to his son:

I started this job
and I hate it already
and now I have to finish it.

His son replies, “Well Pop, that’s life.” And so it is, so it is.

Back on Thursday with news about Minnie, who is getting a lovely right sleeve…

We’re not going to look at Minnie’s shoulder seams anymore. And we aren’t going to discuss them anymore either. Just let it be known that I am not impressed with this kind of so-called design work.

We are not amused.

If I were queen this woman would no longer be allowed to publish her designs and fob them off on unsuspecting victims knitters who would then sweat and toil and hand-bead the bodice with “special beads” until their fingers bled…only to find that the motifs do not match up at the shoulder seam.

I am beyond consolation. But I did start one of Minnie’s sleeves:

I am knitting from the top down using a short-row technique to form the sleeve cap. All in a sustained effort to do an end run around setting in a sleeve. Which to me is about as much fun as working in a zinc mine.

I’ve finished the neckline and the button bands:

The search for the right button has come up short, I’m afraid. We didn’t have the right button at Woolcott, which means I’m going to have to go outside the “family.” I don’t feel good about it, but a girl has to do what a girl has to do.

This sweater is going to look fine when it is blocked. As long as you don’t look at the shoulder seams.

Meanwhile, wedding preparations have taken a dark turn. As you may know, we are doing something slightly unconventional in that the “wedding” is not a single event, but rather three:

Event Numero Uno: We will be married in an extremely small ceremony at an “undisclosed location.” This event, the wedding itself, will involve only our immediate families, an arrangement that we may ultimately live to regret, given how little our immediate families have in common with one another and given our foolhardy decision to have everyone repair to a “festive” dinner together after the ceremony.

I have been threatening to hire actors to take the roles of the various family members, including me and Alex. They will be given a script, the right things will get said, conversation will be witty and well-paced, the topic of religion will not come up, and the whole thing can be videotaped for our viewing enjoyment.

I will be played by Nicole Kidman.

She always looks great in photographs, and since the bridal industry has left me with the impression that the most important thing is how one looks and particularly how one looks in photographs…well, I think this will be absolutely ideal!

But seriously, just think! If the wedding and wedding dinner are miserable, horrific disasters, I will certainly get a funny story out of it and you can read all about it here. Stay tuned! This could be a lot of fun for everyone!

Event the Second: Two days after the strained, awkward meeting of our two families at a highly-charged emotional event, a situation that any fool can see is a proverbial recipe for disaster heart-warming joining of two people in the sacred bonds of holy matrimony, we will have a reception in California for all of our friends and family who live more or less out that way.

I have no major concerns about this. It might even be fun as long as we’re not dogged by an aggressive photographer, required to smash cake in one another’s faces, or forced mete out cheesy wedding favors like the “Love Beyond Measure” measuring spoon set.

Not that any of those appalling possibilities have ever actually come to pass at an American wedding, events known throughout the world for their restraint and unerring good taste.

Event No. 3: The Final Stop on the Bales-Wellerstein “Love Fest” Tour. Two weeks after the reception in CA, we will have a celebratory party out here for all of our East Coast friends and relatives. I’m very excited about this. Very excited! It’s just wonderful to think that my extended family and many of my oldest and dearest friends are going to be at this shindig.

There’s only one source of anxiety: we’re having this party at our house. I thought this was a really great idea when we dreamed it up a few months ago, and I still basically think it is a good idea. People can come when they want, stay as long as they want, bring their kids… It’ll be warm, informal, truly celebratory. Shelley can be there, and you know how I love that dog.

There’s just one problem: I was feeling expansive when I made the invite list and I believe that I’ve invited, um, well, something like 180 people. I’ve kind of lost count. Hey, I’m thirty-nine years old. I’ve lived awhile and I have a lot of friends. What can I say?

One thing I can say, and this for sure: this house is not all that big.

“But you have the back yard!” I hear you cry. Yes, and what a back yard it is! Having been “let go” for approximately twenty years, the back yard is a splendid example of unfettered natural beauty, including pernicious vines, rotting railroad ties laid down in tamer times, strange concrete paving stones that have shifted into mysterious formations, and buried Miller Lite cans that surface periodically after a drenching rain like so many archeological treasures. Home to wasps, garter snakes, and the occasional groundhog, the back yard is an ideal place to gain a closer understanding of your relationship to nature and your own place in the natural order of the world.

It is not, however, a great place to have a wedding reception.

I decided last Sunday that I needed to rake and clean up one small sector of the yarn only, to at least take a stab at beginning to get it under control. I worked for two backbreaking hours. I filled two garbage cans and two large bags with detritus:

First can of yard crap.

And its little chum.

And all my toil, all my efforts resulted in this:

Suburban back yard or abandoned lot?

Toward the end of my yard session, I had taken to belting out, “You gotta have heart!/Miles and miles and miles of heart!/When the odds are sayin’ you’ll never win/That’s when the grin should start!”

Thereby squandering all my accrued social capital with the neighbors.

The fact is, I’m no gardener. So here is my question to you: what do you know about gardening? About getting an unruly back yard under your thumb? I’m not after the Gardens of Versailles here, but just something passable.

Spill. Please. Come summer, there are 180 people who will thank you.