Recovery (picture heavy post)

Well, I made it. After posting on Friday, I finished my sabbatical application, got in the van, and went to pick up the dancers. The van:
Did I mention this thing was huge? From the inside looking back, it went on forever.
Big as it was, though, it barely fit everyone. To my great relief, I found the special back way that let me drive right up to the front of the building to drop everyone off (otherwise, it's five flights of stairs up), and we got there in good time. By that point, I'd been fretting non-stop (and losing sleep) for ages. About what to say to introduce everyone, about whether the dancers were going to be bored during the storytelling, about whether there'd be enough time for the storytellers to get their audio equipment going and to take it down, about whether the audience would stay past the intermission (and free pizza), about whether there'd be an audience at all (I can't tell you how embarrassing it would have been to have flown 11 people down here just so I could watch them dance). Fret, fret, fret.

Things went well. The dancers found the storytellers as entertaining as I do, and the kids loved them. There was, in fact, an audience (hence the kids). It wasn't huge, but the space was relatively small, and most of the seats were filled. There were some students, and my friends brought their families (none of them know I have a blog, but thank you, my friends!). I told everyone that the price of pizza was staying for the second half (I laughed while I said it, but you know the kind of laugh it was), and they did (I'm guessing they didn't need to be threatened). And then I introduced the dancers. I kept it very short, and Robert did an amazing job throughout the dancing of stopping now and then to explain what they were doing and why. It was absolutely perfect. And frankly, once the drum started, and the dancers came out with their bone flutes, nothing else really mattered.

The point of this kind of dancing is to sacrifice to the greater good. Robert explained to everyone (I'd known this, and I was glad he told them) that the dancing is meant to make the dancers work and sweat, to give something up for all the things that people get. And that the dancers do it for everyone. You get what you give, he says, and it's important to make a point of giving and not to just take from the world. He doesn't put it this way, but what I see when I see them dancing is something that I can only describe as purity of intention. These singers and dancers are completely and entirely there in the moment, and the energy they expend is awesome, in the true and older sense of the word. And it is clear watching them that they are doing it with joy and grace. In a world where everything is, at its core, energy, they are putting the best energy they can muster out there as a gift. And it truly was a gift. I stopped fretting. I stopped worrying. It was all good.

For me, being me, the hardest part of all of this was that I knew that the reason they were here giving this gift was because of me. Robert and I have been doing language work together now for years, and the folks in that group, whether they really know me or not, know who I am, and what we do. They've seen me around the reservation, at ceremonies, at people's houses. All of them said that they were happy to be there to do this for me. I am not very good at feeling worthy of that kind of effort. It feels like I am putting people to too much trouble, and that what I do is just what I do, not something that should haul 11 people from their homes and children, carrying regalia 600 miles to dance. So it is my tendency to feel guilty. I know I shouldn't. I know that when I do something requiring that kind of effort and time and (if I'm doing it as I should) purity of intention, I am doing it from love, and because I want to give something to someone who has given to me. In my case, it's usually cooking or knitting, creating something by hand to warm or nourish someone I care about. I enjoy thinking about that person and why I care about them while I'm creating; I feel that it puts the right kind of energy into the finished object. I think I was (and am) overwhelmed by the idea that these people were putting so much energy into something because to at least some degree, they feel that way about my work with their Tribe. It was truly a gift, and I came away from it feeling more whole and more taken care of than I had in a long time.

I tried to take pictures, but the dancers were (duh) moving (this being an inherent part of dancing); it was also fairly dim, and a flash would have really been disruptive. I eventually gave up because I prefer to experience something like this without a mitigating lens. Here are a few, though, to give you a sense (this is one of the few dances they do that it's possible to take pictures of):
Here they all are afterwards, out of regalia:
It was good.

I got up at 4:45 Saturday morning to get them all to the airport (after waking up every half hour most of the night to be sure I hadn't missed the alarm), and came home. Even after two cups of coffee, I fell over on the couch and slept for an hour. Then I woke up, realized that I had to return the van Right Now or I'd be charged for another day, and off we went. We stopped by the farmer's market on the way home, where I was seduced by the color and shine of these babies (and by a squash blossom quesadilla for breakfast, yum...):
It's not just yarn that sucks me in with its sheer beauty. Now I have to figure out how to make chiles rellenos. Hmmm...

Then I went back to sleep. I think I was just totally worn out with two weeks of planning and worrying, and trying to get everything else done while preparing for this week. I woke up to go to Tess' soccer game, which they won after a very rocky start (good job, baby!). And then home, to knit Kivrin's sock and finish Madhur Jaffrey's autobiography, Climbing the Mango Trees, which I highly recommend, and not just for the recipes at the end.

Kivrin's sock is done, and I have cast on for the second, thus attempting to circumvent the dreaded SSS:
It's my own pattern, and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. I also entered a contest over at Adrienne's site; she's generously giving away STR and Tofusties (!!). Go see her, and tell her I sent you. Any woman who's willing to share good sock yarn deserves a hit.

Sorry for such a long post. I think I'm caught up now. And I promise, no more bitching.

Zot!

The universe is definitely out to get me. No, I am not paranoid, I have evidence. To wit: after weeks of wishing that the weather would cool down, that we might even get, oh I don't know, rain down here in the desert-y part of the state, I woke up this morning and it was raining. Raining. On the day that I have spent weeks planning an event which is to take place OUTSIDE. In the rain.

Except not. After two fairly hysteric hours on the phone, post van pickup but prior to airport pickup, I have managed to find a space indoors on campus. It's not ideal -- the pizza that we are serving cannot be brought into the space, so we'll have to find a way to serve it between the two groups who are performing. And, of course, there's no walk-by traffic to build the audience. And, of course, it's not only too late to change the posters, but the university apparently has not a single A-frame available to post room-change signs on, and Facilities (which did not even bother to set up the chairs I'd ordered for Tuesday night's event in time for Tuesday night's event) set up the chairs for tonight's event in the rain this morning, and are charging me for them even though we aren't using them and didn't ask for them until 3:30 this afternoon, which would have been plenty of time to cancel the order.

This is the point when I have to consider the fact that the one common element in all of my life's latest disasters is: ME. I must have done something very wrong in a past life. Either that, or I've done something very wrong in this life that I have forgotten about. Either that, or (and this is a more hopeful interpretation) I'm PRE-paying for really good things to come. I like that idea best.

However, a very small hour and a half window has just opened up -- the dancers are at their hotel, fed and (I hope) happy. Rick has taken the girls to their piano lesson, which their teacher kindly agreed to schedule early so they can come tonight. I am alone (blessed solitude) in my house, and I intend to finish my sabbatical application so that maybe, mirabile, I can, after dropping everyone off at the airport at 6:00 tomorrow morning and divesting myself of the packing crate on wheels we're calling a 15-person passenger van, I can not work this weekend. Maybe the girls and I will bake. And make a vat of chili. And take a nap. Maybe (I might be getting too ambitious here) I'll find a recipe and buy the ingredients for mojitos and make myself one tomorrow evening. Yes. That's the plan, and I'm stickin' to it like glue.

P.S. Five minutes later. I take it all back. The postman just came up my driveway and dropped off this:
(no time to take a real picture and upload it; I'm using my mac's photobooth -- note the backwards writing) Do you see the lovely colors of this yarn? And the Asparagus Cable socks pattern from Wendy that I've been wanting since she wrote it? And the lovely wee stitch marker with knitting needles and a ball of yarn that Sheri included just because she's so nice? Am I a dork because I am so easily made happy? I think not.

Are we there yet?

It's Thursday (I am known for my brilliant observational style -- can you see why?). This means that there is one more day to go for the week of California Indian Day, and then I go back to my usual overloaded working life, rather than the insanely overloaded working life of the past several weeks. Just so that the folks who told me to get hotel rooms for the dancers tomorrow night can feel good, I hereby report that when I told my friend this morning that we'd reserved four rooms for them, his immediate response was, "That's great!" Clearly, no need to worry. None.

I am busily downloading photos right now so that I can clear my camera's memory card so that I can take pictures of tomorrow night's dancing to post. I know it's not knitting, but it's very cool, and it's a big part of my life, so y'all just have to suck it up.

And speaking of dealing with my strangenesses, I have an exciting linguistic fact to share with you. As background, what is perhaps even more exciting is the fact that one of my students found this fact for me after I was sidetracked in class wondering about it. It has to do with the word penguin. We were transcribing it in class (there are some very interesting variations in pronunciation of that word depending on where you're from), and it occurred to me to wonder what language we borrowed it from. It's pretty clearly not Germanic. Well, it turns out (I am so charmed by this fact I can't stand it), that it comes from Welsh. Welsh! I mean, really. The original Welsh was pen gwyin, meaning "white head", and it was used to refer to the auk (I was very glad to find that out, because I couldn't for the life of me figure out why the Welsh had a word for penguins; my worldview was becoming somewhat upset). This is right up there with finding out, when I was giving a paper in Wales, that the elves in the Lord of the Rings movies are speaking (wait for it) Welsh! Who knew? (Besides every Welsh speaker in the world, of course.)

Now, while I admit not everyone would find the etymology of the word "penguin" as exciting as I do (I truly love the Welsh, and the fact that they gave us such a cool word just confirms their niftyness in my opinion), what's really cool about this is that it means that I've started to suck my students in. In my grammar and syntax class the other day, one student asked about the structure of something another professor had said in lecture (she admitted to being rather embarrassed to have been paying attention to verb forms rather than the lecture, given the innate dorkiness of doing such a thing, but was too curious not to ask; this is as it should be). She actually had nailed the analysis all on her own, too. More and more, they're raising their hands and saying, "I noticed the other day that X was saying Y, and I was wondering why they would do that?" Yes, little observant social scientists in the making. THIS is why I teach. (That, and the hope that someday linguists will rule the world, but that's another story.)

OK, in order to keep this from being a completely knitting-free post, I present you with pictures of my stash bowl. This is where I keep the yarn that I can't bear not to be looking at (the rest of it hides in two big wicker baskets under a coffee table). I just switched out some of the more summery colors for those that are more fall-like. The picture isn't great (the light in my house is either nonexistent or blazing, neither of which is great for pictures). Nevertheless:
This is that same photo without flash:
I'm not sure either one really gets to the beautiful peachy colors of the Nature's Palette sock yarn there on the right, but that's my next pair of socks (Falling Leaves from the Favorite Socks book) just waiting to happen. Aren't they all lovely? Doesn't looking at them just make you happy?

P.S. Thanks so much for the encouraging comments yesterday, I really needed them. I'm still a bit fragile, but I can see that things will get better, and that until they do, I'll be all right.

Hump day

Well, on Monday night, I started something new. Here it was Tuesday morning.
I needed to knit something simple and soothing. Something requiring no thought, but interesting enough to keep me from hating it. Something that would show evidence of success pretty quickly (I really need to feel like I'm achieving something these days). A sock seemed like the right thing to do. I had some yarn left over from Tess' Millicents, and from my Traveller's Stockings, and it was clearly Kivrin's turn for socks (and I ordered a skein of sock yarn for me from The Loopy Ewe and felt the need to use some of the yarn I already have before anything new arrived), so I cast on. By the end of the evening, I'd gotten through the picot edging (my very first picot ever), and chosen a little bit of lacework for the sides.

After last night, and a meeting this morning, here's where I'm at:
(please excuse the sockpuppet nature of this photo; I'm not sure the one where I tried the phone inside the sock is any better, but you can sort of see where I'm going here; the toe will also be in the STR yarn -- the blue is Cherry Tree Hill...)
OK, I'm not much of a photographer. These days, I'm not feeling like much of anything -- writer, researcher, knitter, mother, wife. I'm in what my mom would call a weepy mood. So, until it goes away, I will keep knitting on this sock. And when I'm done, I will have something that my younger daughter can wear on her feet. And it will be good.

Gifts

First off, it is so nice to know that I'm not the only person out there with latent antisocial tendencies! Both Anne and Janice said that they prefer hotel rooms after travelling and spending time with people; I thought I was the only person who, at the end of the day, really prefers to just be left alone. Therefore, assuming that funds come through for the hotel rooms for the dancers on Friday night, I will take the funder up on that, and drive everyone to a hotel nearby (this also means an average of one bathroom for four people, instead of one per six -- who can resent that?). I will call today to find out what we'd be on the hook for, price-wise.

This morning has been a morning of small and unexpected gifts. Usually on Monday mornings (and by usually, I mean in the past couple of weeks since the girls started school, so don't go thinking I'm all virtuous or anything), I meet a friend of mine to walk at 8:00. This is the time that she drops her kids off at school, and it means I have to get the girls to school a half an hour early, since their day doesn't start until 8:30. This isn't usually too big a deal, since it means more play time with their friends, but it does require a bit of an effort for all of us to get moving on a Monday morning.

So, this morning, we hustled ourselves, got lunches packed, convinced Kivrin that her stomach didn't really hurt (a long story for another time, and something that's fretting me), fed the pets, and loaded up the girls and the dog. We hit the road, and then hit a roadblock, in the form of the new railroad crossing that's going in. The bars were down, lights flashing, bells dinging, and a very tiny little maintenance train came by. The workmen with the stop signs walked away, leaving the bars down, the lights flashing, and the bells ringing inexplicably for five minutes during which nothing came by, at which point, equally inexplicably, everything stopped, and traffic was allowed to resume its normal flow. That was when I called my friend and left a message to tell her I'd be a few minutes late.

At three minutes before 8:00, my friend called me back to tell me that she wouldn't be walking this morning, since her daughter, who'd been sick all weekend, wasn't going to school. I understand about sick kids, and needing to cancel, but I would have wished she'd told me fifteen minutes earlier, when we were still at home, and I could have had a cup of coffee before leaving the house. Alas.

Of course, there I was, dog and all, so I headed for the nearest trail -- when in doubt, get the feet on dirt. It was a lovely morning. The sun was out, and the air was cool. By the time I'd gotten along a ways, I was in a better mood, and figuring that if I had to be ditched without coffee, at least I had my dog and could go for a walk. That was when I rounded a corner and saw a blue heron sitting in an oak tree next to the trail, bearded and dignified, surveying his world. I greeted him politely, and he in turn deigned not to fly away as we passed. In fact, he was still there when we came back. A small gift, and one which pretty much made my morning 100% better.

On top of that, Kia was feeling energetic and happy this morning as we walked. She'll be 13 years old this winter, and we've been walking together for 12 1/2 of those years. She's been my pace-setter all of that time; when she's jogging, her legs in merry contralateral motion, I know I'm going fast enough. When she slows down and starts to pace, the legs on each side moving together, I know it's time to pick it up. She goes off-leash, because she always comes to heel when someone goes by, and when we're alone, she jogs ahead, one ear up, and one ear down, jauntily trailblazing along. Even now, when she's stiffer than ever and slowing down, she's always up to go out with me, whatever the weather, wherever we go. As old as she is, each walk we have together is a gift, and I intend to enjoy every one.

Last but not least, I am actually (yes, this is me) sending not only the washcloths I promised Janice, but also (gasp!) the scarf that I knitted for my advisor when she retired this past spring, which has been sitting on Rick's desk waiting for me to send all this time (post office issues). (I also included a wee giftie for Janice in her package; I figure I should share the joy while I've got it.)

Yarnival

Wow, can you believe Kelp! put me in the 12th Yarnival? A very kind thing to do. Rick was a bit surprised to find himself nominated the hunk of that issue of Yarnival (go, baby!), but has decided to be provisionally flattered (I explained to him that knitters have very good taste, and it is definitely a compliment). Thanks everyone who read and commented on that post -- I really appreciate it (and especially thanks for the good info on Kitchener; at some point, the issue just must be resolved so we can give credit where credit is due -- can you imagine socks pre-grafting?!).

We have had some interesting avian goings-on in our yard this afternoon; two red-shouldered hawks have been going at it with a murder of crows. One hawk will fly to a telephone pole and sit, screaming defiance at the world, whilst crows fly around, cawing their corbae brains out. Then, the hawk will fly to a tree, and sit there, shouting "mine! mine!" while the crows land on the telephone pole and laugh. Then they swap. This has been going on, loudly, for hours. The other hawk sits on various branches, supportively adding to the cacophony. It's freaking the cats out no end. I tried very hard to get a picture, but a hawk on a telephone pole looks like a brown lump through my camera, and do you have any idea how fast those babies fly?! So, no go. Rick suggested I record how they sound, but I'll spare you that.

P.S. Submit to Yarnival! The next one is being hosted by Stitch 'n Sue, and she's got a link for submissions there.

Ribbit

So, remember Friday? Day of hope, Kauni looking like this:
Then, I sat through five hours of meetings (truly, I am not kidding or exaggerating here -- five), and, whilst I didn't take another picture afterwards, imagine another two beautiful, clearly defined squares on top of what you see in that picture.

I took it home. I looked at it. The squoodgy, smooshy, foggy bit looked a lot more smudged by comparison to clean-cut, delineated squares both top and bottom. I look at it some more. I looked at the picture on the pattern, I went on Ravelry and looked at every single Kauni project there (btw, everyone -- nice work!). None of them had smudgy bits. Mine most definitely did. My bubble burst, and I realized I was going to be seriously bothered by the smudgy bits. A decision was made. By the end of the evening, it was back down to the checkerboard, and one set of squares. Weep.

Rick was a huge help here. I think this might have been strategic. We've been dealing in mutual annoyance for the past little bit (a lot of overwork is contributing to this). But his engineering soul was engaged in the problem of figuring out how to line up a new set of colors so that I'd have a maximum chance of avoiding this problem again (I just don't think I could face it). So we sat on the couch, Kauni on my lap, surrounded by balls of yarn, and plotted. Then, (and here's the bit where I'm pretty sure he was trying to mitigate annoyance) together we ripped. He managed one ball of yarn, and I managed the other (he is a Master Knot Wrangler, fifth rank, after years of kite flying and sailing), and after an hour of work, my hours of work were gone (weep). Also at least a large part of the annoyance -- it's hard to stay annoyed at a person who willingly sits on a couch playing with yarn and saying consoling things during the process of ripping out my heart -- oops, I mean my knitting.

I couldn't post about this yesterday, the pain was too fresh (just kidding, I was actually really busy). But now I can say that I have joined the yarn of one ball in such a way that the color change continues to flow without abrupt shifts, and I have finished one set of squares, and the colors are resolutely staying away from each other, as they should. I know that, after another five or six hours of work when I'm back where I started, I'll be glad I did this.

On better fronts, Tess' soccer team won resoundingly yesterday (4-0). It has been so much fun to watch them play this season (it's also great fun to watch Rick coach -- he's doing an amazing job with them). In spite of the fact that, for the first three games, they had only 0-1 substitute (instead of the 3-4 they were supposed to have), they played their hearts out, and even won one of those games. In some ways, I think that they came together as a team because of it (they were all playing all the time out there on the field). And now, watching them play is pure pleasure -- they're really looking good (note: this is also by comparison to the years when I was watching them play four on four, in a version of soccer that really didn't look very soccer-like at all). Tess is seriously considering trying out for the competitive team next year; she wanted to do it this year, but said that her big regret about playing rec was that her dad had never coached her -- Rick took that hit for us, and saved us the driving and expense of competitive for another year. I'm not sure she was ready this year, but the way she's going, she might be next year.

Yesterday was productive in terms of getting ready for the invasion on Friday night (assuming it happens; there may actually be enough funding leftover to get some hotel rooms -- would that be inhospitable of me? I keep thinking it would be, and then people point out that more bathrooms is never a bad thing. This is true. Whaddaya think?). I cleaned and vacuumed the living room, kitchen, and dining room (this sounds so impressive, until I tell you that they are, for all intents and purposes, one big room -- as a complete aside, my students now habitually write that phrase as "for all intensive purposes"; language change in progress). Also, the kids' playroom and the guest room. Today is for the den and our room, and then things will be in order, assuming we can convince the kids not to move for the next five days.

I'm in a good mood because I am caught up on grading and class prep, at least for this week, and therefore don't feel compelled to work today. I also have been getting enough sleep, which means that tomorrow can be a very productive day, which helps with the not feeling compelled to work at home today thing. If Rick gets my bike fixed and the rain holds off, we might even get a family ride in. Now, if I could only stop lying awake at night before I go to sleep, worrying about what needs to get done in the next two weeks, that would be good. Maybe it's time to invest in a nice bottle of Talisker for some small sipped prior to sleeping. Heh.