Dear Severus

If anyone out there is as slavishly devoted to Snape as I am, check out this bit of fan fic. I've only just emerged from the romantic vortex this moment...at a certain point, it's true, I began to skim for the Snape subplot, but it was well worth it.. We LOOOOOOVE him, right?

Old School

The flowers I bought today at the corner market:



Today I spent time (way too much time) musing over how repugnant I find the world of NYC private school--the jockeying for three-hour playdates, the squash lessons, the nannies, oy vey. Not my scene at all. You have to fight the good fight to keep it down-to-earth for your family. We're only in the second week of school and already I feel the pressure. On the bright side, E's school will be the very best possible place for her. It's where I and sissy went, so I know. Of course, it's changed somewhat since my day, when everyone let their freak flag fly in unbelievable ways. People are still flying their flags, but the milieu has certainly been transformed from utopian bohemia to rapacious nouveau riche. But the school itself is still vibrant, I think. She has gym and art and music and poetry classes, and two lovely teachers. And my biggest task, besides my own school work, is to try not to micromanage every detail. Unfortunately, that runs counter to my very nature.

I've finished one of the baby projects, but won't post the picture for now. Also started ANOTHER granny 'ghan in shades of greens and yellows. It's Lion Brand Vanna's Choice (yes, that's Vanna White's own line), which, although with much potential for mockery, is actually a very nice yarn with lots of pretty, muted colors. Also quite cheap. The 'ghan is blazing along. My goal is to have a towering stack of bright and inviting blankets by midwinter. Maybe then I'll give some of them away. But we're a family that definitely likes to snooze on the couch, so the assortment comes in handy. Is there anything better than a couch snooze?

First Day of School

Today was the first day of school and I ate in the cafeteria for the first time. It was delicious. This time it was a Chinese meal: delicious rice that was sort of hard but sort of soft and tasted like there was something else in it but you couldn't see it. There was also a celery soup with carrot in it. The carrot looked more like pickles, but we knew it was carrot. The person who had it said "Dill pickles in my soup!" and the person next to him said "It might be cucumbers." And then another person said "Wait a minute, it's celery." "You're right," said the soup owner.

And then I met a new friend and I can't remember his name, something like M. And there was such a thing as "Bag of Me" which was a bag with three things that represent you. I brought in three fantasy things, because I love fantasy. And then the boy, named M, told me that he loved Pokemon too because I had brought in a Pokemon coin. So we had a little conversation about things like Pokemon.

I have a boy teacher named J, and everybody has desks with art supplies all their own.

(guest blogger Hedgehog)

Squirtle to Wartortle to Blastoise

It's the last official day of our summer, and I'm quite moody, worrying about getting back to housework and dissertation and real life in Brooklyn, and the melancholy of E starting first grade (my melancholy, I mean)--she's a very intense little person, but I've gotten used to, and love, having her around all day. Selfish, I guess. She needs to be back amongst the six-year-olds...

Pokemon fever has hit our little brown camp in the Adirondacks. It all began with a Salvation Army find--Bubbe purchased an enormous collection of the cards for ten dollars. Now E and Sissy have become obsessed. E returns to Brooklyn armed with an ever-increasing collection...

And here are the projects for my stepdad's b-day. I just can't recommend these dishclothes enough. You can get the pattern in "Mason-Dixon Knitting" (an inspiring book--these ladies have a great color sense), or on the Peaches and Creme cotton yarn wrapper. They are so much fun to make, work better than a sponge on dishes, and wash and dry nicely. Try making some--it's almost as addictive as rippling!

Punk Rock Outfit

I've been so not posting here. The summer is closing rapidly, and the Adirondacks are alternating between freezing and boiling. Some days we huddle by the faux stove space heater, and some days grouchily schvitz. E has begun to have some pre-first grade anxiety dreams--in one, she arrived at school wearing a "punk rock outfit," but she and I didn't notice till it was too late and by then all the other students had seen her before she could go home and change. I assured her (in waking life, that is) that punk rock outfits are perfectly acceptable at her new school, one of the myriad reasons why we are sending her there. Still, the rustlings of anxiety are never stilled by sense and reason, and besides, I do believe they're perfectly normal...

I gave my step dad his birthday presents yesterday--he is old school and doesn't believe in sponges. Neither plastic. Anyway, I made him what is now traditional--socks--and some new knitted disclothes with cucumber dish soap. I will post some pics tomorrow of said works, but for now here is my geriatric old guy:



And here are some more of E's earrings:



Punk rock on!

SeaFlower and so many socks

I've reentered the land of the thinking people. After six years dormant, many of them happily so, I'm back in the Ph.D. swing of things. I'm enjoying it, too, sort of. I like my field (Criminal Justice) tremendously. And I think I like my dissertation topic.

Anyway, we've all been very busy up here in the Adirondacks. E has her first business. She named it SeaFlower, and she makes one-of-a-kind (as she puts it) earrings. It reminds me of my many businesses as a child, ranging from elaborate sidewalk bakesales with my special friend Al, to a short-lived industry of velour doll blankets, from scraps my Grandpa Ozzy gave me. He was a dry-goods merchant (fancy for he sold fabric and notions at a booth in a bazaar, the Busy Bee Market). My mom was also put in mind of her own summer business, making personalized macaroni letter pins, which she collected money for but never delivered to her customers...

E's earrings are quite pretty--she's been selling them mail-order, five dollars a pair (which I think is a bargain!) to an assortment of friends, and I promised her end-of-summer booths at both the craft fair and the local church lawn sale. Here are some of her offerings;





In the meantime, I've been working on socks. I'm well on my way to many single socks--I have a fear of the second of the pair--so boring to knit!










And here are my beautiful rosewood Lantern Moon sock needles. I treated myself at my new beloved upstate yarn shop:



I'm also working on baby gifts for the many enceinte among you...but those I can't post pictures of, because they're to be surprises.

Now I must return to the articles on rural policing, which call out to me their siren song...

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...