Sprung

Spring is here this week, no matter what the calendar says. Tommy insists with all his might that March 22 is THE DAY THE SNOW GOES AWAY and that is that! He doesn’t seem to have noticed that the snow is already gone.

The wheel turns and the leaves emerge, the birds make nests, the ground greens up again, and the crocuses poke through and stretch up. All the aspects of spring come around again as they did last year. And the wind is blowing so strongly I am just waiting for branches to come sailing off the trees. Being surrounded as we are by middle-aged maple trees, this is a nerve-wracking prospect.

We have birds about. The usual sparrows are nesting in the garage-gutters right above the car, and the usual starlings are nesting in the broken-down brick chimney, which means the hatchlings are, or can be, inside the house at some point. They also nest inside the little roof over the unused front porch, through a break in the wainscoting. They are annoying beyond belief. I can’t think of a single positive thing to say about them, so I’ll move along now. We also have robins, chickadees, nuthatches, flickers, red-winged blackbirds, American Goldfinches, and Downy Woodpeckers. And “our” Sandhill Cranes are back in the neighborhood, looking for a place to nest. Last summer I had reason to believe that the female of our nesting pair was taken by a coyote. I don’t know if that means that Dad and Junior are back to help him look for a new sweetheart to lure back to his old nest, if the two of them are just going to hang out as bachelors, or how any of that works.

So it’s looking better and better outside — more sunshine and color — but the environment itself is still inhospitable and possibly fatal, especially if you lose your mittens. (Which I just found this morning, incidentally, after nearly getting frostbite yesterday morning delivering urgent Campus Mail with bare hands.) You certainly would be wise to wait a bit before doing anything as brave as cycling or running or even walking Out There.

I’m still viewing it askance after this mild winter. Everyone in Wisconsin my age and up shares that same spooked look that says, “We’re going to PAY for that mildness, somehow.” If we had a May blizzard we might perceive the scales to be in balance again. It’s not that we want it, it’s what we feel we have coming to us.

Spring break is coming, but it comes unequally to all. My own spring break is the last week of March, and my kids’ break is some time in April. Of course they couldn’t possibly happen at the same time. My spring break plans include revamping my work space so that I can file and track the technical manuscripts I’m going to start copy editing. I will take some Before and After pictures of my setup, just to document that I did something. I already have one manuscript I need to edit this weekend, and it’s taking everything I have to keep from putting 150 percent of my mental resources on the Office Makeover Project. Having a bunch of homework for each class of mine due on Monday is also helping.

I suppose it’s time to update my progress on my resolutions. Well, my grades are still up, I’m not exercising in any meaningful way, I’m working on my second Jayne Hat (for which I got new yellow and dusty-pink yarn yesterday), and here is a blog post.

Oh yeah — this coming Tuesday I will have a Teenaged Son. All I can say is Wow. His feet are as big as my feet, his hands are almost as big as my hands. His names are his grandfathers’ and his face is his father’s. He is half Star Wars and half Star Trek. My JC is gawky and geeky and opinionated and emotional and cool. I wouldn’t trade him for any other card in the deck.

He’s bigger than this now…. he’s come a long way since 2007. Love you, buddy.

Damn the torpedoes!

And by torpedoes, I mean, of course, resolutions.

My grades didn’t tank — I’m still carrying an A in both precalculus and astronomy.

I didn’t gain 300 pounds — but neither did I lose 40. So I still have that one to struggle with.

And I’m still posting on the blog at least once a week.

But knitting… so help me, I needed to work on something new and bright and colorful and full of shiny fangirl wonderfulness.

So I did.

May I present Jayne Hat #1, which was not even in my queue until last week. On Monday I cast on and knitted to the end of the orange segment. Then I marched steadily on with the Browncoats until this afternoon, when I made my first pom pom with a pair of cardboard cutouts.

Hero of Canton

The yarn is a mishmash of Plymouth Encore for the pale orange and Thrift Store Mystery Yarn for the yellow and the red. All they had in common was that they were accessible and most likely machine washable. (I know that red has to be Red Heart Super Saver, and a careful washing should soften it up. I sincerely hope.) The pale orange tone works, actually, but now I’m somehow out of a proper yellow and I don’t want to use bright red  for the ear flaps again after seeing a picture of Adam Baldwin in the hat.

The man known as ME

So. Maybe now I’m back to my resolution-knitting, and maybe I’m not. But I know I will be making more Jayne Hats as soon as I can get the right yarns together. It’s an easy pattern (though I don’t think the one I made looks much like the real hat) and a quick knit, so it’s an easy way to augment your Geek Cred if you’re into that sort of thing.

Knuckle down

There’s not much knitting going on here, and my opportunities for off-site knitting have dried up faster than a stale metaphor in the sun. I’m trying to fix that a few rows at a time, in the little space I have before work every morning.

And I appear to have given up exercise for Lent. I think it’s time to push a little harder and get things into shape around here, including myself.

We had a couple rounds of snow squalls this week, but the sun keeps coming back to melt it all away. It wasn’t a harsh winter, which is really nothing to complain about, but we’re all just hoping there’s been enough precipitation over the winter to give the farmers a good growing season. A drought this year would destroy things.

Staying on the positive side…. the days are lengthening. There is more sunlight. Baseball is coming, and, well, baseball is coming.

Say it's so!

A day late and a short post

This was a long week, but I can’t think of much to say about it. Brendan was out of town from early Monday morning to very late Friday night, so I did a lot of catering to the kids when I wasn’t studying for the first exam in my astronomy course, taken on Wednesday (grades are not up yet).

What did I do? I drove the station wagon a few times, super glued Tommy’s glasses back together, learned new stuff in math class, dropped the ball on Valentine’s Day, washed a lot of dishes, did a lot of laundry, baked chocolate chip cookies a couple of times, and barely watched any television at all. I didn’t get as much sleep as I needed, I didn’t eat as well as I should have, and yet I seem to be gaining wait. Stress, stress, stress.

One does what one must, I suppose. But I shall try to do better this week and maybe get some knitting in, though my opportunities to attend my regularly scheduled knitting groups seem to be gradually vanishing. I passed a benchmark on a big long-term project; I can’t claim that the end is in sight at this point, but it may be within comprehension.

One of my two big items this week is to take Tommy to an eye exam. It seems odd to say that he hasn’t had an exam in years because he’s not yet six years old, but it’s true. He started wearing glasses when he was in Pre-K4. He’s been breaking his Internet-ordered frames now, and it’s time to see if he needs a new prescription.

The other big item, happening on the same day, is to take JC to apply for a passport. His Tante Linda has booked passage for them on an Alaskan cruise this summer, and because they will be traveling to and through bits of Canada (I’m so envious!), a passport is essential. He’ll need to have his passport photo taken, and the application process will be a little complicated by the fact that he’s a minor with one deceased parent; I’ll need to bring my son’s birth certificate and his father’s death certificate.

In an ironic twist, Peter had wanted to take him to Canada a couple of summers ago to eat at his friend Steve’s restaurant in Windsor, but I couldn’t get the paperwork done in time because I couldn’t find JC’s proper birth certificate. But when I was at Peter’s house looking for key items after his death last fall, there was a certified birth certificate for JC in one of the folders. Weird.

Anyway, we’ll get the process started on Friday, so my son can prepare to be a travelin’ man. He’ll be 13 next month; it’s Rite of Passage time.

Resolution Update

Resolutions? Did I make resolutions?

Spam: Foreign exchange

Would you be fascinated by exchanging links?

Considering part of the spammer’s address was “Hotel Gdansk,” well, I think the answer has to be “maybe.”

Calling a Mulligan

This was a never-ending and wearisome week. The summary is thus: almost no knitting. Gained back all the weight I’d lost so far. Threw out so little junk that I forgot Thursday was Trash Day. Spent most of my time being tired. So, it’s time to draw a line in cyberspace and let myself start over. Tomorrow is another day and all that. I shall prevail, I vow that I shall. Eventually. In the meantime, please print new dance cards and reset all counters to zero. Thank you.

One highlight was that on Friday I pretty nearly rocked my first math exam. Unfortunately it was the easy problem that escaped me. After I turned in my test I solved the thing in my head in less than two minutes. Oh well. I will get more credit for doing as much as I did algebraically than if I’d written down my “logic” that solved it later. So, it’s net gain, and I didn’t erase a good answer and replace it with a non-answer. It’s a strange thing to be positive about, but it’s mine.

Spam of the week:

Sometimes, there weren’t even enough slots in the computer and so you also had to buy an expansion chassis.

From the bucket to the sprout

I swear, I had the beginnings of a terrific blog post all drafted and ready. All I had to do was add some images of album covers and it was all set.

Last night I was supposed to be seeing Barry Manilow in concert at the Chicago Theatre, performing from his 2011 concept album 15 Minutes. Barry’s been a bucket-list item for me since I imprinted on him at the age of 12, he wasn’t getting any younger, and I wasn’t getting any closer to Las Vegas. So I was excited to hear my husband had gotten us tickets to his sold-out Friday night show, even though it made for a super-hectic Friday of work, classes, an eye exam, picking up the kids from school, and rushing them to their grandparents’ house before switching cars and driving (him) / riding (me) to downtown Chicago. Also on the agenda was brunch at Rick Bayless’s restaurant Xoco the next morning. We’re big Top Chef fans and although he’s eaten at two other Top Chef restaurants (run by Harold Dieterle, winner of Season 1, and Wylie Defresne, Top Chef Master), this would be my first Top Chef meal.

But at about noon on Friday, he texted me with the news that Barry was still not recovered from recent hip surgery, and the show was cancelled. And then another text: we couldn’t get out of the hotel reservation, so we were going to take the trip anyway and have dinner at a Top Chef restaurant.

The hotel, Sax, was literally next door to the House of Blues. Which we didn’t enter, have a drink at, or hear anyone play at. Next slide, please!

The unvisited House of Blues

With the Jetta safely valet-parked somewhere in Chicago, and trying not to think of Cameron’s dad’s Ferrari, we took a cab a little ways north to Sprout, which is run by Season Three Top Cheffer Dale Levitski. Now, I was being a happy little tourist taking pictures outside, but I wasn’t about to take any pictures of the restaurant interior, the menus, or the food — although I was tempted to do so at certain points in the meal.

I was going to try to link you to the menus at the Sprout website, but they are not the same menus we saw last night. I have a feeling they change very frequently. Instead, you’ll have to trust my descriptions as I, in turn, will have to trust my memory. (Buckle up.)

Before dinner I had a cocktail that was basically a lime fizz with ginger. It was served with a tiny wedge of lime on the glass and had a very dry finish.

For dinner you could order a la carte from the menu or choose, as we did, the prix fixe. We chose an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert from the menu and would also receive a soup course and a cheese course along the way.

The appetizer I chose was a curried shrimp, which was cooked to perfection on a square of puff pastry and accompanied with a mildly sweet sauce the color of butternut squash, sprinkled with pistachios, and next to a small salad of baby turnip greens, radishes, and dark cherries. It was amazing, and our server indicated that things would only get better from there.

Oh, yes — I was also having a lovely glass of wine with dinner. I usually prefer a white wine on the sweet side, but having picked spicy shrimp to start with and a game meat as the center of my meal, I ended up with a full-bodied red wine that would go pretty well with everything. I do not by any means have an expert palate (though I was, um, coached in the drinking arts by a pair of sophisticated drinkers who shall remain un-named), so when the server described Wine One as “all right” and Wine Two as something that would “provide better structure for my meal,” I decided to trust his authority and didn’t regret it.

Next came the soup course, a tiny taste of a butternut-and-something soup garnished with baby greens and served in a small white cylinder of a “bowl.” The total volume of soup, velvety on the tongue, couldn’t have been two tablespoons, which was good because it was terribly rich, and having any more would have ruined my appetite for the….

Venison, crusted with black pepper, with rustic mashed potatoes and a dark-cherry-and-something demiglaze. I have never had venison before, but tonight seemed the night to try it. The slices appeared rare in the middle, but were actually cooked perfectly and just melted in my mouth. And the wine was perfect with it, strong enough to handle the black pepper (which I barely noticed) yet add some sweetness.

It was around this time that Chef Dale (actually, Executive Chef Dale) came out of the kitchen to talk with the Annoying Couple at the table next to ours. They had been a little too loud all evening, casually dismissive of almost everything on their plates, and basically a pair of local nitwits for whom requesting an audience with the chef was standard operating procedure. Dale stood between our tables and chatted amiably with them, so close to me that I could have goosed him. (I didn’t.) I guess part of a chef’s image is the ability to interact politely with anybody who wants to interact with you, and Dale does that very well. When he was done with them, Brendan caught his eye, and Dale asked about our meal, so we chatted him up for a couple of minutes, asking a bit about behind-the-scenes Top Chef stuff (judges’ table can last up to FOUR HOURS) and trying to spend more time than that in praising his food to high heaven.

Dale retreated to the kitchen, and our cheese course came out. I was expecting a plate with cheese on it, but what we got was a “grilled cheese sandwich” that was more like a wedge of a quesadilla, with aged Wisconsin white cheddar and thin slices of roasted apple inside. This is the only item I ordered that is pictured on the Sprout website; go to the Gallery and click once on “back” to see it.

Then it was time for dessert, and I had picked “chocolate.” (Why would I not?) I remember a chocolate mousse with shaved chocolate, and some creme anglaise, and a very very rich dark-chocolate-and-something sauce beneath it all, but my stomach was filling and now my memory is fading. Everything was wonderful, and I don’t remember sharing a bit of it. I did make a bit of a mistake with this course by not finishing my wine before I started eating it — it was a clash. I remedied that as soon as I could (bottoms up!), and enjoyed the chocolate very much. We finished with a cup of coffee (sweetened with raw-sugar cubes and can’t-say-”lightened” with some thickness of cream) and cabbed it back to the hotel.

Gene Siskel Film Center

On Saturday morning we took a walk around the area before heading back to Milwaukee to get the kids. We went down State Street and passed the Chicago Theatre, which did NOT list Barry Manilow on the marquee. We saw the Gene Siskel Film center (miss you, Gene). We wandered around a bit, then saw something very familiar — a huge Picasso sculpture I’ve seen dozens of times in The Blues Brothers, and a signal that we were at Richard J. Daley Plaza and “on set” for the culminating scenes of The Blues Brothers. I was a very happy little tourist here, and scurried around to find just the right angles for my pictures. They’re also in a Facebook photo album titled “Blues Brothers Walking Tour.

Chicago Theatre

National Radio Hall of Fame

Does anybody know whose these fellows are, on the side of the Cook County Municipal Building? Boy, would I like to tag them on Facebook.

Mystery Man 1

Mystery Man 2

All in all, it was a fun trip even though I didn’t get to see Barry (yet). Chicago itself was my eye candy, from architecture to cuisine to walking through scenes from one of my favorite movies.

So. Resolution update? A little knitting, great work in my classes (I was even the first to turn in my Astronomy homework online), no getting rid of anything, and I don’t dare step on a scale after eating and drinking as I did. I didn’t even tell you about the espresso/Tia Maria/vodka cocktail I had this morning with a three-egg spinach and feta omelet, with perfect hash browns and wheat toast on the side. That omelet might feed me at every breakfast for a week!

Spam: That guy

I am not making this stuff up. — Dave Barry

Then again, this place having the character it does, that guy may well dress like this every day of the year.

One sad Hufflepuff

It is with a heavy heart that I pass along the news that some of my most treasured handknits have expired. Yes, I know there are greater losses. But these knitted items were kind of a benchmark for me in a lot of ways.

First off, I didn’t knit them. They were the first handknits I ever received, from the first knitting swap in which I ever participated. It was the summer of 2007 and Harry Potter mania was in mid-swing. One night I’d probably had half a glass of wine too many, clicked on a link, and Bam! I was in a Harry Potter themed knitting swap. We had fake wizarding names and everything.

I remember the timing because it was when I was starting to knit the Ravenclaw-colored socks for my downstream swap partner, my youngest child was admitted to the hospital and being fed some high-calorie meals around the clock in an effort to pack some pounds on him. I was pretty stressed out and struggling with the double-pointed bamboo needles and actual Sock Weight Yarn, but I was making a game effort of it sitting on the hospital bed until the afternoon I pulled too hard on the wrong needle and yanked it out of about 25 stitches. I knew then it was time to quit without really quitting. I called in a favor to my cyber sister Lauren in Scottsdale, frogged the project, and sent her the yarn so she could make socks for my partner. I did make some beaded stitch markers and get other goodies for my downstream partner, but in the end she barely acknowledged receipt of my packages.

My upstream pal, however, was a whole different story. Jules sent me a pair of striped Hufflepuff socks, a drawstring bag with lotion and goodies, and my favorite type of Ritter brand chocolate — dark chocolate with marzipan. You can relive that happy moment here at my One Happy Hufflepuff post from June 21, 2007.

Jules was also the first long-distance knitter I met in person. We got together once at a cool yarn/fiber shop near Springfield, Ohio, that had, among other things, a claw-foot tub FILLED with yarn. It was on that day that I bought my first package of stitch markers, and a hank of yarn I just KNEW I would make into mittens someday (and I eventually did). It was that first meeting when I told Jules she had the hair of a spinner. Do you believe me now, Jules?

We met up again a couple of years later to visit a yarn store in Dublin, Ohio, and get some Jeni’s Ice Cream while I finished Those Noro Socks.

Many things have changed since then. Tommy put on a few pounds and got discharged from the hospital. I learned to knit socks and even more intricate items. I had meetups with other knitters, created a little knitting get-together we like to call Unwind, and started a local knitting group that’s been meeting for almost three years now. I’ve done another Harry Potter related knitting event, and got re-sorted; I’m no longer classified as a hardworking, loyal Hufflepuff but a brainy, clever Ravenclaw who has gone on to knit herself some nice ‘claw-colored items.

When you knit…. people don’t often give you knitted things. But other knitters know this, and the kindest of them make sure that the handknits keep getting parceled out. I cherished those socks, and this winter I was wearing them to bed when I felt especially cold. One morning a couple of weeks ago I took them off to discover that they had given their all.

I’m sorry, Madame Pomfrey / Jules / Crafty Peach. But they were loved.

Spam: missed connections

This is the saddest thing I’ve ever discovered in the spam bucket. It makes me almost hope I start getting links for Russian porn again.

I know you’re going to return to the ocean, and I’m going back to the land, and we’re never going to see each other again.