Virtual Spring Fair

Hello everyone.

I want to extend an invitation to attend a Virtual Spring Fair.  I plan to visit all the stalls today, but in the midst of my rounds, I decided to upload the information here in case some of you would like to attend as well.

Mum, of Mum’s Simply Living Blog is hosting the Virtual Spring Fair.  Clink the link to find out who is participating and then work your way from one stall to another to see what folks have been busy doing.  Beautiful work!

I was not familiar with Mum’s blog until yesterday.  I found out about the Virtual Fair from Cathy at Still Waters when I stopped by her place to see what she’s been up to.

So, thanks to Cathy for passing on the information about the Fair and to Mum for hosting and to everyone else for their beautiful stalls.  It makes me want to set up a stall myself and join in the fun!

I’m off to check out some more goodies.

On this day . . .

 . . . I was called to the nursing home where my father had been for two years.  “Your mother needs you,” was all the caller said. 

I had just had breakfast with my mother and she had been fine.  We met half way between Smalltownville and where I live.  When we ended our time together, she went on her way to spend Holy Saturday (that year) with my dad.  And I went back home because I had to work.  I do some free-lance work and I had three assignments to complete before I would spend Easter with Gr8.

“You’re mother needs you,” was the person’s way of avoiding the obvious.  My father had passed away.  I hung up the phone, told Officer Friendly that my dad was gone, and then drove to the nursing home where my mother was waiting – alone with her lost love of 52 years.

She needed me.

Mostly, she needed my help in gathering Dad’s things and emptying the room space so it could be prepared for the next person to need it.

As we gathered Dad’s belongings, Mother told me what to keep and what to throw.  I had a truck, so his chair fit easily into the back of the truck and I was able to help her get it – and everything she wanted to keep – back to Smalltownville.

She had told me to toss his nearly empty bottle of aftershave.  Even in my adult years, I haven’t been prone to disobeying her, but on this occasion, I did.  I tucked it in my pocket and carried it with me throughout the day.

We waited at the nursing home until the funeral director took my father out the door.  Then I squeezed my mother’s hand and told her I would see her the next day when I finished my three work assignments.  She knew there was no way I could skip them.  It was already the holiday weekend and there was no way to get any substitution.  She assured me she would be fine.  I promised to call her when I got a break.

I turned to go toward my truck to drive back  home to Officer Friendly and my work and suddenly felt very small.  I took the bottle of aftershave out of my pocket and gently sniffed my last corporal attachment to my father before assuring myself I that I could actually drive away.

I still have my father’s bottle of aftershave vapors.  Today I will take my annual whiff and tuck the bottle away again for safekeeping.  Last year, I shared my whiff with Gr8.  She didn’t know I had the bottle until then.  She just smiled at me and took a sniff without saying a word.

Sad thing about moveable feasts is that memories attached to them get attached to the date as well as the feast, so . . . Gr8, Indybro, my sis, RockyMtBro, and I will be thinking of Mr. Gr8 today and then again next week when Holy Saturday rolls around.

Today, the song on repeat is Papa Can You Hear Me, from Yentl.  It’s for them and me . . . and Goodnight, who was his tiniest buddy back then.  Tiny buddies miss their great-grandpapas, too.

She makes me laugh

Goodnight filled my afternoon with the pleasant ramblings of a young teenager.  She’s so full of energy and she brings that energy to her conversations, for the most part.

She’s had an interesting week . . .

Softball practice

Stay after school for not completing an assignment.

Piano recital

Softball practice

Detention for an interesting circumstance for which I will feign strictness, but take her side this time.  More on that another time.  She serves the detention tomorrow.

During our combined after-school bantering, I happened to remind her about tomorrow’s detention and casually told her that I didn’t appreciate two in the same week.

GN:  But Gram, staying after school and detention are not the same thing!

Gram: Do you know the definition of detention, or to be detained?

GN: No.

Gram:  Look it up in the dictionary.

GN: But Gram!  They’re different.

Gram:  That may be, but staying after for an incomplete assignment and detention for a rule infraction are still two, count ‘em, two days of staying after school.

GN: You’re lucky I didn’t get another one today in our library time.

Gram:  That would make you the lucky one.  What would that have been for?

GN:  Looking at graduation dresses on the internet.  Well, probably for being loud while looking at graduation dresses on the internet.  We were having fun.

Gram: But we have your graduation dress situation solved, except to buy the fabric.

GN: Oh . . . and Gram? If you come to my graduation, “wear sonthing(sp) nice.” 

She was quoting an app from her iPod.

Gram: First of all, what do you mean ‘if’ I come to your graduation?  How will you get there if I don’t go?  And . . . I already have something planned to wear.  I’m going to buy extra fabric and make a dress to match yours.

The look of shock darted across her face, but she recovered quickly.

GN:  No offense, Gram, but you couldn’t pull off wearing a dress like the one you’re gonna make for me.

I shouldn’t burst out laughing so quickly.  I should pretend to be strict or shocked at her direct nature.  Or at the very least, hurt by her honesty.  But I’m not.  She was  simply stating the obvious and I was only pulling her leg.

GN: So, Grammy?  Wanna do something fun with your granddaughter before softball pratice?

Gram: Sure!  How about your algebra?

GN: The party’s over then, huh?

Gram: It is . . . unless you think simplifying radicals is as much fun as looking at graduation dresses on the internet.

 

Knitting News

I have a blog friend to thank for sharing the news.  The Canadian federal government recognized the distinctive Cowichan sweaters of British Columbia’s Coast Salish First Nation for their national historic significance.  The designation was announced last Thursday.

My blog friend sent me a link to the article published Sunday by the Globe and Mail.

The Winnipeg Free Press has an interesting article about the sweaters as well.

Clink the links to read either/both the articles.  They are both interesting.

Knitting and culture is as interesting to me as food and culture or language and culture.  For me the interest is people doing for their families and developing traditions in the process.  I particularly enjoyed the description of the proper aging process for the sweater as given in the first link above.

The Cowichan sweaters are distinctive.  Google some images and have a look if the above articles whet your appetite.

And . . . thank you, Philip, for kindly sending me such an interesting news item.  I think I would love to take a (very long) field trip to visit May Sam at the First Peoples House on the campus of University of Victoria.

Gram’s Advice for a Rainy, Chilly Monday

Don’t commit the crime.

If you commit the crime, don’t give an alias.

If you give an alias, don’t use your older brother’s name.

If you use your older brother’s name, make sure he doesn’t have outstanding warrants.

If he has outstanding warrants, make sure  you and your older brother have never been arrested in Detective Officer Friendly’s former jurisdiction.

If you and your older brother, alias, (Al for short) have been arrested in Detective Officer Friendly’s former jurisdiction, make sure it was not Detective Officer Friendly who conducted the investigation and filed the formal complaints.

If Detective Officer Friendly was the one who filed the formal complaints, make sure you NEVER commit a crime against Detective Officer Friendly’s widow.

If you do commit a crime against Detective Officer Friendly’s widow . . . . . thanks for the laughter at the totally cosmic irony of how bad a situation you’re in when the Gram reads the file and sees her husband’s signature on the evidence that is gonna give you a wee bit more trouble than you already have.

I’m just saying . . .

Ya Gotta See the Rump Shot!

Much as I love to watch football, I can’t sit around and pine away when the season is done.  Thanks to Goodnight, basketball has admirably taken its place.  GN and I have been watching the Boys State Basketball tournament action.

Last night it all wound down to an exciting finish.  Mayhem in the end.  The Star Tribune Baskteball Hub called one game a ‘thriller at the horn.’  Quite true.

But the purpose of this message is to remind myself of the Rump Shot and its recreation attempt last night.  It’s worth it to watch the video.  The famous shot from the 2005 4A final game, won Hoffarber an ESPY.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the state tourney and last night, during the halftime break, one lucky contestant was selected to try the Rump Shot.  It didn’t work, but the guy said he made it a few times when he practiced.  Pretty good to make it at all.  There to toss him the ball for his attempt shot, was Blake Hoffarber himself.  It was a fun moment.

I love this stuff!!!  Good thing.  Goodnight assures me she will make JV next year in her first year of high school.  Maybe I should have her practice by taking a seat on the court at the corner just outside the three-point line, leaning way back and tossing it like her life depended on it . . . .  nothing but net.

If one must work on Sunday . . .

 . . . then it can at least be at a beautiful hotel.

First, breakfast just on the other side of the pool wall . . .

. . . and then a formal and lovely award ceremony for college students who participate in statewide competitions.

Must to go ‘work’ now.

One Last Super Scarf

Indybro is a good brother.  He’s been patiently waiting for me to knit him one of the Indianapolis Super Scarves I designed per a suggestion from him.  He wasn’t in a hurry because he was issued a Super Scarf as part of his volunteer uniform for his zip line assignment during the 2012 Indianapolis Super Bowl.

The scarf he requested was the second most difficult of the 46 scarves I knit for the Super Scarf Project.  I called it “He, Myself, and I, II, III,” after Indybro, me and the first three . . . well, you get it, but we refer to it as the Roman Numerals scarf.

It’s done!  I worked on the Roman numerals side during my Spring Break because Goodnight had to go to school.  I had lots of time to concentrate on my charts.  I was mostly able to complete the scarf during my week away from work.  There was a fair amount of finishing to do, however and my schedule has been hectic since my Spring Break ended.

Thanks to the state high school basketball tournament, however, I was able to get the remainder of the work done on his scarf this week.  Whew!  Glad it worked out a second time because I didn’t write the pattern as I knit it up the first time.  I only charted the numerals and scribbled some notes and in intend to let my notes and charts remain in that state . . . . .

Hey Indybro!  It goes in the mail on Monday.  Thank you for your patience, but mostly, thanks for so much fun, laughter, and family time with the Super Scarf Project and the Super Bowl!  You’re a peach. 

I was just going to browse . . .

I did enough spring cleaning for today.  Actually, the townhouse is small and with my ‘chore and a drawer’ per day routine, Spring cleaning isn’t such a drag.  Besides, Spring is an entire season – 1/4 of a year.  I figure there’s plenty of time to get the cleaning done.

So I took myself to the garden store.  I know it’s too early for things to be moved outside, but I knew there would be lots of things in the greenhouse.  I intended to lollygag and dilly dally.  That worked out . . . mostly.

But then I spotted the Campanula plants.  One of them begged me to give it a new home.  So I did!

Then there were the pussy willows.  I’ve never been able to resist them.  They take me back to my youth when I jumped rope to the Pussy Willow rhyme.  They hopped in my car and joined the Campanula for the ride home.  The twigs that look cut or broken in the photo below are’t cut or broken pussy willows.  They are sharing a vase of long twigs I already had on the table.

Musical Feet

Sometimes you just know when a purchase will make a perfect gift!

I spotted some cute socks on a rack at a local store the other day.  I bought one pair in each of the colors available to give to my mother (Gr8).  They will be part of her Easter basket.  She’s been a drummer in a band for a long time now and still practices when she gets the chance.  She taps her toes to music and it helps with the beat.  And now she will have music notes on her toe-tapping feet.

And . . . BTW, a second set of all the colors goes to Goodnight.  She gets one pair early so she can wear them for her piano recital next week.

Oh, and . . . the Gram has some musical socks, too! 

Happy, happy family feet.  La, la, la, la, la.