Busha Full Of Grace

Outta the Mouths of Mom

Watching a Court TV show with my mom:

Mom: How can a husband do such a thing? You think you know them and then they kill you.

Me: Terrible.

Mom: I mean, I think he did it. Who else would kill such a nice church lady.

Me: Makes you wonder.

Mom: Look at all her friends. Nice ladies. All of them look like good people. You hear that? They say she would do anything for him. But look at those hairdos! You know, all your cousins in Oklahoma wear their hair like that. All the curls and the spray.

Me: It's sad how people can just snap like that. I don't think anyone in their right mind would kill. He surely has psychological things going on.

Mom: But look at those teeth. I bet if she would have done something about them maybe he wouldn't have killed her.

Me: MOM! That's a horrible thing to say!

Mom: Well, I'm just saying what's the truth. She didn't take very good care of herself.

Blogland, I kid you not.

Things come in threes

Last night I began a new pair of socks for myself. I am so into socks these days! Hand-knitted socks, to me, are an incredible work of art, a luxury. I saw a posting on a blog (I don't even rememver where or who) that had this long, narrow cedar box with a dozen pairs of hand-knit socks folded neatly inside. I want to have that too! So, I have 3 partially knited pair of socks right now. Good solid beginning.

One is the first sock I ever knitted. It is a fair isle pattern, knitted out of Lamb's Pride wool, on size 5 needles. They are thick and warm, probably house socks or something I'll wear with my Berkies in the winter. The toe is pre-kitchner and not so great. But hey, this was my first pair of socks. Actually second. First were just like these but different colors, knitted for #1 ex's 50th birthday. The toes on his are SO pointy, they slide forwardand flop around on his foot when he walks. Yes, they have been the brunt of many a joke. I think I need to redo those toes, Kitchner style. His are chocolate brown and dark green. These are off-white and sea green:

The second is my first try with Austermann Step, that I set aside when I began working on Nettie's birthday gift:

And the third pair I need to finish is the one I began LAST NIGHT (as if I needed to begin yet ANOTHER). But this one is exciting to me because, although it is hard to see in the photos, it has baby cable ribbing. The yarn is Koigu KPPPM (Koigu's Painter's Pallette Premium Merino), 100% merino wool, dye code P120, dye lot 75. Because it is hand-painted, each dye lot is original "painting". The dye code has the same colors used. So no two skeins are exact. I love working with this yarn because it doesn't split at all. The yarn calls for size 3 needles, so I am working it on 2's to assure a tighter stitch.

New goal. New focus. New aspirations. If only I could retire. Life would be so simple.

Happy Saturday. Mom's day, remember? Sigh.......

A Dozen Things That Please Me Visually

Everytime there is laundry flapping on the clothesline, there is a story being told to the wind. Watch it someday. You will see freedom. You will see texture, and color, and age, and intensity speaking for all of the world to hear.

Clothes drying on outdoor lines
Back alleys
Very old people
Birds flying in formation
San Francisco skyline
Pregnant women
Wooden front doors
Grazing cows
Folks visiting on city stoops
Ribbons of highway
Snowy scenes

No

It's damn hard to hear the word, "No". For me personally being a pretty positive thinker, it diverts direction, suspends motivation, and puts me in the doldrums. Poor Camille has heard her share of no's today. Her best friend doesn't want to be her friend anymore because she feels left out of Camille's busy life; her college of choice denied her application; and her body is sick once again, just as she has to leave on an overnight architectural field trip to San Francisco in the morning. Poor baby.

Just then, another friend came by with a piece of chocolate cake and she found some Claritin D in the medicine cabinet. Two outta three aint bad. Remember what it was like to be a teenager? Worse than menopause, damned straight.

A Picture Says a Thousand Words.....BOOOH YEAH!

We were driving to the school auction, it was dusk..........

That's what smart-ass Zak was quoting my blog as saying for this morning. Ha! The auction was lovely and I had so much fun with the school families, my colleagues and my family. I bid on this beautiful quilt that a mom made, out of all the kindergarten napkins and the teachers aprons. I wanted it so badly, I think I went up to a bid of around $200.00. At the end of the night, Shannon handed the quilt to me in a bag and said, "Someone gave this to me to give to you; an anonymous donor." It took me a moment to grasp the idea of such a gift. What a treasure of a lifetime! I begged, threatened, and bribed all the way home to find out who it was, but Shannon wouldn't fess up. So...thank you from the bottom of my heart Kindergarten Universe (spread the word, Sally!).

On our way home, we decided to surprise the boys at their Saint Pattie's Day party at Little Switzerland. The polka house where I used to go with my grandma for Sunday afternoon polka parties! Last night I stood there wondering what she would think, watching us dance to the DJ's and loud loud loud loud loud loud loud loud loud music. The Auctioneer paled in comparison. And there was this refrain thing that the audience called out when the music slowed down:

Excuse me, but....ummmm.....who do I think I am, where are my glasses and why do I have a sore throat this morning?

BOOOOOOO YEEEEEEEEAAH!

Top O the Mornin'!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! It's a beautiful morning. I started it out early, by getting coffee at the local coffee cellar with my son, Zak. Since I wore mismatched slippers (Lord, help me), he ran in and I had drive through service, so-to-speak! And this wonderful rooster parked right on the fence in front of my car...crowing his little heart out. And I love that sound.

We're going to a party tonight. I think I just may test my Irish roots with a bit of the ale....Have a wonderful day, and stay tuned for tomorrow's report about tonight!

Finished Sock

I finished Nettie's sock, my half of her birthday present. Working with the Austermann Step yarn was quite an experience. It is infused with jojoba and aloe vera, thus my finger tips always felt so smooth and even kind of slick. Throughout the process, I kept smelling my fingers (is that weird?) to see if there was a hint of lotion. And Camille was fabulous last night! The dark end of the spectrum of color was her senior year, not death. I hope the right teachers got her message loud and clear. You go, girl!

Thy Heart is Delicate Rhyme Love

On the refrigerator, I have magnetized photos of each of my children when they were babies, with words to describe their very essences to me in magnetic poetry. This is what it says under Camille's photo; taken when she was about 2 1/2, with her beautiful blue eyes, proud smile and her pacifier displayed in happy fingers:

Thy
Heart
Is
Delicate
Rhyme
Love

Tonight Camille will present her Senior Thesis to the world. It has been an incredible process for her, and I have been blessed to be her mother, and to shadow her through this study of self. From conception, until she put her beloved (sometimes questioned) painting into the back seat of her old Volvo this morning, heading toward school. I would say, in a nutshell, that Camille’s blessed princess life turned tumultuous in high school. Internally so for her. Her challenges were emotional and social. Her naiveté pushed to its brink and into awareness. Her depth of character never ceasing to amaze me.

So, here is a look into her self-portrait, from a mama bird’s eye view:

Her painting traverses back and forth from childish to confident. Camille took a journey through color in the band surrounding the room, representing the cycle of birth through death. Counter-clockwise. And the window. Camille included her astrological star formation, Libra. There was a time when Camille was about 13 or 14, when we argued about who got which bedroom. Finally, I just put my foot down and said it was time for her to move to the smaller room; that I deserved, as an adult, the larger space (she had originally shared it with Alex. But when he moved to his own room, she was left with the largest room in the house.) After the dust settled, she came to me one night and said, “Mom, move your bed to that wall. It’s so great. You can look out the window and watch the moon as you are going to sleep.” So I see her, eight years old, dreaming out into the everywhere as she drifts off to sleep. The childish brush strokes and storybook moon.

As well, she has proudly displayed her initiation into womanhood, framed right there next to her childhood dreams: the Chinese symbol for "baby sister", bravely tattooed on her hip on her 18th birthday.

The bookshelves, a little askew, represent her four years of high school. A little sideways, but holding strong all that is important to her. Her milestones. Books of plays. The clay pot she made, open vessel into womanhood. Jack Sparrow, the puppet she made in her textiles class. Why Jack Sparrow? I think because he speaks of a trip she made to southern California with her dad and Kendall, to look at colleges. While there, the girls fully let loose in teenage silliness. The hilight being Disneyland. The t-shirts, the rollercoaster rides.

Perhaps she sees this as a signpost at a fork in her road? Otherwise, why Captain Jack Sparrow?

And the words her brother painted above her closet when we redid her room for her for her 16th birthday:

Peace. Love. Unity.

And the completion of her design with the continuous doorways of many vibrant, rich colors: the rest of her journey, still unkown...still open...still inviting her through:

My beauty. My fledgling. I'll be there tonight. So proud of you.

The Mulberry Bush

Suffice it to say, I’m busy as can be…kind of like working three jobs, caring for my aging mother and nursing twins. No, I’m not pregnant! Nor was I. This is pure old menopause belly in all its glory. But I am that busy. Spring is just like that. Lives awaken and our worlds become busy.

Yesterday was mom’s day. She wanted to go to the movies and I talked her into enjoying the beautiful weather. OK, so I suggested we take a drive to the coast, but she said she’d rather me drive 40 miles to Nordstrom so she could use a $20.00 gift certificate she got in the mail. But, it was her day and I said sure. The route was the one I make each day for my commute; along the way I pointed out my favorite signs of spring, but as always, she wanted to talk about the old days. So, I heard about the old days again. A new version of the old days. After awhile, her thoughts begin to shift to shopping. She tells me about of all the blouses she has hanging in her closet, that still have the tags on them.

We arrived at the mall in Corte Madera, and then we played follow the leader in Nordstrom. After the first game, we played again! Both games following the same route: petite’s department (who’s petite?), up the elevator to blouses, through children’s to the restroom, back to blouses, back to the water fountain to take her pills, no water fountain so back downstairs to the cafe for an iced tea, back up to blouses, down the elevator to the MAC counter, to the wallets, to shoes, sixteen times around the shoe rack. The shoe department is very, very crowded. There are shoes all over the floor and I'm afraid she's going to trip. When she sees shoes (polka dot shoes were the topic of the day) she wants to show me, she reaches out and wacks me with her cane. Then, up the ESCALATOR (ooooh gawd), back to blouses, back to petites to get the pretty aqua blouse and bring it up to ladies wear to see if they have it in a regular size. Nope. So she orders it from the Walnut Creek store, in size 16P (who’s petite?), sends me to lingerie to look for a girdle, has me paged in lingerie to bring her wallet back to her. AND THEN as she's hanging on my one arm and my other is trying to manage both of our purses and the bags, she says, “I didn’t get what I really came for. I NEED gold earrings.”

Didn’t Zak just return the pearl and gold earrings that we took you to buy in December?

Cruisin' Along

Minding my own business, and there is glory all around on this rainy commute!