Even the bananas …

… are rebelling!

Sometimes All You Need is a New Pair of Shoes

As might be obvious by the complete lack of blogging in almost two months, I’ve been distracted. Busy. Changing up a lot of things. I’ll be able to reveal all in a few weeks (and no, it’s not a 4th baby!). But as a result of the massive ongoing distraction knitting has suffered. Running has suffered. Reading has suffered. It almost seems like I’m not doing anything I love as much as I used to, except tending the kiddos.

Then I suffered a bout of late-night online consumerism and bought a new pair of shoes. This may not seem very exciting to most people, but I have been known to make shoes last a decade or more – I still wear a pair of Teva sandals I bought in 1992. The purchase of these particular new shoes required quite a bit of research and lurking on several running-related forums, my favorite being the Running With Sharp Objects Ravelry group. Knitters do everything better!

Since I took up running again almost two years ago I’ve been suffering various aches and pains, the most annoying being a persistent case of runner’s knee in both knees. I am determined to run the Missoula Marathon this summer with my long-distance running buddy Courtney, but my training willpower is at an all-time low. I joined a gym, I’ve been working on core strength and flexibility, and I’ve been trying to inject some fun into my physical routine but nothing was working. It was all blah, blah, blah. (Maybe that was just due to it being a particularly grim February.) I decided that this new pair of shoes might just be the ticket out of all this misery and went ahead and ordered them. They arrived today. I think they might be magic.

I bought a pair of minimalist running shoes: men’s Merrell Trail Glove shoes, in a snazzy grey and yellow combo, size 7 1/2. This is 1/2 size larger than my big foot (aargh, I have two different sized feet) and large enough to wear with Smartwool running socks. I love these shoes. I took them out of the box and put them on and immediately felt like I’d been wearing them forever. I’ve been working on my gait this spring, and discovered that I naturally have a “barefoot” running style. I land on the ball of my foot, I lean forward slightly so my shins are perpendicular to the road, and I take small quick(-ish) steps. It may seem counter-intuitive to go to a less padded shoe when I have tricky knees, but I believe that my strength has improved enough to have the correct posture to pull this change off without making things worse – plus I spend all my time in the house barefoot, and most of the summer as well. I like to think that I have well-developed barefoot muscles.

The roads have been lousy and the trails are still buried under a foot of crusty snow, but today Browns Meadow Road was bare though a brisk wind was blowing from the west. I cheated and drove down our very long and steep and icy driveway and ran three easy miles on the dry pavement – just a few minor hills. The shoes are aptly named. They do feel like wearing a glove. I took a chance with the men’s version. The women’s shoe has a pleated elasticized heel that was suspect to me, and since I have feet like a dwarf man anyway, I thought I could switch genders. No problems with heel slippage, the toe box is delightfully roomy (no more black toenails!) and the minor cushioning in the foot bed feels like it’s in the right spots. The lacing is really responsive, and I could make the shoes fit tightly without cutting off circulation. On the road I concentrated on my running form, my foot placement, and my ankle stability. I could feel the muscles in my lower legs, ankles, and feet working in a different way, but it wasn’t a painful way. I could really feel the road, and though I was plodding along at my usual tortoise pace I felt as speedy and light as a hare.

I’m glad I found a pair of minimalist shoes that aren’t the VFF. (Apologies to all VFF lovers out there, but I need to wear socks with my shoes. It gets really cold in Montana.) And so thanks to the Trail Glove I take barefoot out of my home and onto the roads. Will it be enough to get me through a marathon? Updates to come!

The Perfect Name for Everyone and Everything

This Christmas Iris came up with the best name ever. She was playing with the toy tree fort that Santa brought, complete with felt gnomes, swings, the tiniest little beds and chairs, and wooden woodland animals. She quickly claimed a favorite gnome (the one that looks the most like her) and announced that she was going to be calling her the most beautiful name in the world:

“Dingaleena!”

Over the past few weeks the gnome’s name has changed several times (I think she’s going by “Lily the Second” these days), but Jonathan and I can’t let Dingaleena go. We think Dingaleena is the best name ever.

“Here she comes, Miss America 2011, Dingaleena!”

“And our special tonight is the Dingaleena, a succulent blend of woodland gnome sauteed with amanitas and tree bark…”

“Madame President Dingaleena, it’s a Code Red!”

“NASA just confirmed the rumors that the manned mission to Mars is a go, but Bob, we’re a little puzzled by the name. What’s the story behind naming the mission Dingaleena?”

The only Dingaleena that’s lacking is a knitting pattern. If you were going to knit a Dingaleena, what would it be?

Something Eva Can Do

Eva has been suffering for several weeks from “middle child” syndrome. It really kicked in once Moira learned how to roll her r’s and Eva couldn’t do it, no matter how much she practiced. She wasn’t comforted when both Jonathan and I demonstrated (spittily) that no matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t roll our r’s either. She began mentioning at odd moments throughout the day that there was nothing she could do that Moira and/or Iris couldn’t do. Bringing up all her wonderful personality traits, her excellent reading skills, her inventiveness and crazy sense of humor was cold comfort to her. She wanted an actual, identifiable skill that she could do and no other kids in this house could. And I couldn’t think of anything. That’s kind of the problem when your older sister is three years older than you. All of Eva’s skills have already been learned by Moira.

Then I realized that there was something I could teach her that Moira and Iris don’t know how to do. And so on New Year’s Day Eva learned how to crochet. Several hours later she’d finished a dish cloth in single crochet with a shell border. And nobody else (well, except me, but luckily I don’t count) in this house except Eva can crochet. I think we’ll leave it that way for a while. She deserves to have her unique talent last for a while longer.

And then later on New Year’s Day (it should have been done on New Year’s Eve, but Moira was sick so we postponed it) we participated in our annual braincell-killing tradition of throwing the lead to predict our futures for the new year. Usually the lead (a lump of solder melted in a tin can over a red-hot stove burner, then tossed in a dish of cold water) forms into a bland lump accompanied by a few smaller generic shapes we call “swords” and “teardrops”. It takes a lot of creativity to predict anything from the usual lump or misshapen ball. Last year my lead looked exactly like a golf club – and I don’t play golf. I raised it up out of the water and declaimed something along the lines of, “Umm … this golf club is predicting that this year I’ll play more games!” When I threw the lead on January 1 this year, I got something different. Something downright beautiful. And I can’t tell you how many times in the past few days I’ve thought of this lovely form as an omen of hope and change. To me, it looks like a flower (a peony, to be exact). And so even though it’s just a piece of melted solder, I can’t wait to blossom. I’m doing everything I possibly can to make my New Year’s fortune come true this year.

Love and Loss

Today while Moira and Eva were at school Iris was holding our little guinea pig Maria Estrella on her lap and watching Mary Poppins. I was working on the computer when she said to me, “Mama, Maria is all stretched out.” I looked over at her, and Maria was dead. She died right on Iris’ lap.

I knew Maria was sick. We had taken her to the vet and she was on antibiotics for a respiratory infection (often fatal in guinea pigs), but she seemed better and we were all sure that she’d be with us for the five to seven years of a regular guinea pig lifespan, not the 18 days we had her.

Death is part of the reason why I think pets are a vital addition to a family. It’s a good way for children to experience love and loss – just the sorts of big emotions they’re going to have in their lifetimes with the people they love. But the death of a family pet is never easy. There is much of parenting that seems effortless to me – or at least guided by common sense – but telling your children their beloved pet has died and finding the right words to explain the cycle of life and death, of love and loss, and to comfort them while crying yourself is not something that is easy to do.

This morning I reassured Iris that she hadn’t done anything wrong, that Maria’s heart had simply stopped beating because she was too sick. I held Iris while we cried, and then Iris carefully examined Maria’s body, looking at her open eyes and her limp legs and ruffling her silky fur. She wondered why Maria’s feet were wet, and I explained that her feet weren’t wet, they were cold. It was so obvious that Maria’s spirit was gone that Iris seemed to be quite aware of the distinction between life and death. We wrapped Maria in a pretty cloth and laid her in a peppermint tea box (she was that tiny) and put her in a safe place outside.

Then we waited for Moira and Eva to get out of school and went through the whole process again.

It’s surprising how much impact a little guinea pig can have in just a few days. Our house feels very empty without her, and yet also still full of Maria. Her orange is sitting on my cutting board, scraps of hay have not yet been swept off the rug where Iris tried to feed her and got carried away, and her empty cage is sitting on the trunk near the woodstove. Over the next few days all these physical traces of Maria Estrella will disappear. I’ll put away the toys the girls made for her, and disinfect her cage, and find a place to save the food and hay. We’ll bury her at my parents’ property so the girls can always visit her grave (they adore solemnly picking flowers to put on our other pets’ graves, none of whom they even remember) and then we’ll get another guinea pig. And we’ll look in her bright eyes and pet her soft fur and laugh when she gobbles and clip her toenails and feed her oranges and start to fall in love with her, too, and all the while we’ll know that she’ll die some day and break our hearts, but having her in our family will still be worth it.

We Pulled It Off

Many tedious hours later the toxic yellow smoke (?) and charred metal were cleaned out of the oven and a new element installed, the yams and rolls baked, and Thanksgiving was on.

We had so much snow that the girls went sledding.

While they were outside I snatched a few moments to work on my Thanksgiving socks (still only one done).

And then we played with our new family member, whose name is longer than she is. She’s Maria Estrella, a baby guinea pig.

Maria loves oranges, cuddling, and at present writing is ill with a respiratory ailment and is on antibiotics. This is a dangerous state for a little guinea pig, so we’re all quite worried about our little friend and hope she improves quickly.

When Elements Go Bad

In the words of Miss Clavel: “Something is not right!” It’s the day before Thanksgiving and my oven looks like this:

I’m beginning to get a bad feeling about my timing this holiday.

Three Flappers, a Surgeon, and an Octopus Walk Into a Bar …

… Happy Halloween!

Cuttlefish

I had the best of intentions for the day. I’ve been up since 3:30 a.m. You’d think I’d have managed to get something meaningful done in the past 11 hours – but no. I seem to have spent most of my time watching videos of cuttlefish on youtube. I guess once you start on cuttlefish it’s hard to stop.

(Nope. I’m not linking. You can go find your own cuttlefish videos.)

Almost an Ethical Dilemma

Jonathan’s granddad had a birthday (observed). His 90th birthday is in January, but none of the far-flung relatives wanted to travel to Montana then, so instead it was agreed that a small family reunion would be held in October to celebrate his 90th while the weather was still good. I wanted to knit him a scarf as our family’s gift, and ideally it would have been cashmere. Alas, we’re not on a cashmere budget so I did the next best thing and got poor man’s cashmere (alpaca).

Jonathan’s granddad is a very sober and plain dresser, and I’ve had troubles in the past restraining myself enough to make appropriate knitwear for men. It took me three tries one year to knit an acceptably masculine hat for my dad. (Take one looks great on Moira, and I wear take two all the time.) So I was extremely cautious in my yarn selection and got a hand-painted chunky alpaca blend – but handpainted in shades of tan and brown and grey. Very subtle. Very granddad.

Then I started thinking about scarf patterns. Reversible would be nice, because (shockingly to me) some people don’t recognize any difference between the right side and the wrong side. Plain would be nice. But not so plain that it was drab. Hmm.

Then I saw a new scarf hanging in Camas Creek Yarn. It was a pattern written by the talented cable designer Janet Szabo. It was perfect for granddad. It featured reversible traveling ribs framed in a tiny garter stitch border. It was simple but not boring. And here’s where the ethical dilemma comes in. I looked at the sample scarf and I could tell how it was constructed. I felt that in an ideal world I would purchase the pattern to support Janet. And yet … I was on a budget, and I do feel that I should reap some benefits from all these hours I’ve spent knitting and reading about knitting and mastering the art of knitting. And if I can’t look at a scarf and tell how it’s made and then recreate it on my own, what good is all that expenditure of knitting time and energy?

And so I didn’t buy the pattern, and I did make the scarf. It turned out looking a bit like tree bark, is wonderfully soft, plain, yet interesting and reversible all at the same time, and Granddad liked it. If you like it, you should buy Janet Szabo’s “Citizen of the World” pattern. I can’t find it anywhere online yet, but it is available at Camas Creek Yarn – give ‘em a call. I’m sure it’s a great pattern.

Specifications:

• Pattern: “Citizen of the World” by Janet Szabo (and me)
• Yarn: Misti Alpaca Tonos Chunky (50% baby alpaca, 50% merino) in Nazca, 2 skeins
• Needles: US 10 1/2
• Modifications: I crossed the cables every 6th row to make an elongated diagonal (less flashy!)