North Country Bound

Back upstate...city errands accomplished, Charlotte's Web half-finished, new fall Ripple begun and then abandoned in spare room (too hot to work on it)...I'm also officially back in the swing of the long-fallow Ph.D. August will be devoted to dissertation work. I'm hoping for long evenings of guilt-free knitting and tv DVDs that, finally, I will have earned through diligent literature review...

My Life in the Fairy Ring

Lest I ever make it sound like parenthood is unmitigated lightness of being,






let me say that Hedgehog is a high-spirited little one. Sometimes sounds come out of her six-year-old self such as I've never heard--half-banshee, half-wolf. At least, this is how I expect such creatures sound. Her moods are mercurial as Adirondack weather. Yet, she can be such good company, and funny too. And she fits into our family so well, with her book obsessions and all her eccentricity.

Today, it's raining again. Hedgehog and I drove to Walmart (I realize from my past post that it's apparent we spend a little too much time within the dark fortress of the evillest of empires) for a little traveling tank for VeVe and Lily, the Beta fish. Yes, tomorrow morning, I haul Hedgie, Pippin, two fish and a hamster back to Brooklyn for a few days to accomplish some city errands. When we were little and traveled, my dad sang a song called "We're the Bedouins and We're Here!" My life has come full circle once again.

Hedgie and I worked on a necklace of her design, tentatively called "Fairy Ring." We like to name things, in our family, and these names tend to change as different moods strike. Hedge had some mixed emotions about our handiwork:



She registered some dissatisfaction:





But I think it's quite a necklace. And I'm just glad to use up some of my bead stash in pursuit of trapped-indoors peace, however fleeting.

Knitting Forsaken for Potter

As I write, E is practicing outside in the Adirondack dusk with her new "Legends of the Wild West" bow and arrow set--I took archery (!) in college, and damned if this thing isn't scary, despite its misleadingly innocent plastic-and-rubber-tipped appearance.

A and I plowed through our copies of "Deathly Hallows" simultaneously. A stayed up all night and finished; I sagged at 3 am, leaving a wake of caramel popcorn bits, watery iced coffee dregs, and tears...and finished next evening...all I can say is, JK is my spiritual soul sister. I loved this book. And now I can barely even think of my five half-finished pairs of socks...well, maybe in honor of dear, brave Dobby.

And might I add, seeing as Veresna Ussep herself appears to have left a comment, I will now more freely admit that yes, I am a fan of her illicit Severus! Okay, there, the truth is out!

Potter Approacheth

Well, two weeks turned into a month...I'm still in the Adirondacks, and will be here for the foreseeable future, despite terrible weather and blackouts and sloooow internet connection. The dial-up service in the mountains doesn't bother me so much...after all, who cares about the internet really...I hate to admit I do! But it's not a necessity. For me, though, lights and hot and cold running water are. We were without these for a very dark sixteen hours or so last week...the power went down as I approached checkout in AC Moore with E, my arms full of Peaches and Creme to make "warshrags" galore from "Mason Dixon Knitting." The lights dimmed and died, leaving a gaggle of ladies thwarted in their crafting needs. We drove away, disheartened, right into an insanely busy intersection with no functioning traffic lights! Wow, Kamikaze-style left turn! I attached myself to the bumper of the car in front and followed her lead back to the highway, returning home to nineteenth-century darkness, a freezer full o' melting food, and NO FLASHLIGHTS. E was excited, and Sissy and I put a bright face on it. The candlelight was pretty loverly.

The weather has been uniformly gloomy, H.P. Lovecraftian really. The Adirondacks do get eerie in perpetual twilight--the trees are so tall around our house that they block out the light anyway, and now we're in a gothic novel. I adore rainy days, but the fog and mist and thunder have become unnerving.

I have gotten a perfect rainy day UPS shipment, though: a Charlotte's Web kit with five lovely skeins of Koigu, a busload of aforementioned Peaches and Creme for disclothes, and...drumroll please (well, in my yarn-addled mind, at least)...a box of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino for new Ripple. I shall call this one Debbie. Sissy finished her immense worsted ripple--it's fantastic and so cozy. A named it Gorgar, and the nickname "Gorgo" has stuck, after my sister tried out "Elmer" and "Madge" to no avail. Gorgo seems like the newest pet in a household of pets...his softness is so alluring that we've all slept under him at one time or another, even in his incomplete stages.

And finally, the ultimate rainy-day treat: the new Potter. How I've longed for this day to come. A and I are buying two copies at midnight, and then going into a total media blackout. Let no spoilers sully the experience. I am rooting for Snape to be ambivalently non-evil. My crush on the dark professor has been vindicated by an article my friend sent me, discussing Snape as Byronic hero, and some of the sexy fan fic surrounding his mythos. My friend warned me that I might be scarred by reading some of this online s&m stuff, but of course that couldn't keep me away...I read, and was duly scarred, not to mention blushing. However, it does tell me that I'm not alone in my maybe misplaced luv.

If you dare, google "Veresna Ussep." Not for the prudish, or the blushing, the faint-hearted, the J.K. purists, or even for me. But it's pretty darn well-written. Wonder if Jo has read this stuff?

Well, happy Pottering to any fellow fans who happen here...