just be.

hpapy bithday to me!

at least, i think that's how pooh spelled it. wobbly and all.

and a hpapy bithday it has been indeed. lots and lots of good wishes from friends here and far, productive errands to start the day, fun knitting time at the shop, a catnap, and a fabulous dinner out with my guy. knitting time was extra-awesome thanks to the visit of eight-year-old amanda, a new knitter, with her four-year-old sister lucy and their mother. amanda sat beside me for a nice chunk of time and practiced her knitting in "her blue": hawaiian blue. adorable. lots of stories, smart and funny girl. the kind i'd want to have if i had a daughter. my favorite thing she said, i think, was "this is my favorite yarn store. everyone is so nice. <thinkthink> i think, if i ever go to another yarn store, i'll still think this is my favorite and first. well, it'll still be my first, but i hope it's still my favorite." squeezeyay.

my favorite remark of my own of the day: on the way to eleven for dinner, i said to smartboy that my favorite thing about taking off on a friday was that it felt like saturday so, when it was all over, you felt like you'd had a three-day weekend.

rather than tell you what smartboy replied, i'll let you fill in your own reaction as that sinks in. i'm sure they will be similar.

dinner was teh yum. the amuse-bouche was a tiny little grilled cheese sandwich made with pleasant ridge cheese, morels, and pesto. teeny tiny crispy good. then we had a couple of cheeses for appetizers; the triple cream was as smooth and mild as it sounds. yum-o. i had a mesclun salad with a goat-cheese dressing—i don't care for goat cheese, but i must have accidentally ordered the wrong thing. it was still really good. then came the vichyssoise, to which i'd looked forward for days, and it was every bit as delicious as i'd hoped. i don't know why it's not on every summer menu—it's cheap and easy to make, hard to screw up, yummy, and cool and soothing summer food. eleven makes its with tiny crisps of fingerling potatoes, adding a wonderful saltiness. and of course i saved room for dessert, which was a s'more, eleven style. this meant a thick graham-cracker triangle on a plate drizzled with chocolate sauce, with a small scoop of marshmallow ice cream on it and a cut-out of the same cracker atop that. scattered across the plate were a few truffle-looking scoops of some kind of chocolate ice cream—so good—but the best part (elbowing space with the vichyssoise for best part of the meal) was the homemade marshmallow, a heavenly, creamy sploosh about the size of a lime, browned perfectly with a torch. as andrew put it, it was like the best part of a toasted marshmallow: not the black char, just the creamy part and the brown crispy part. definitely not your run-of-the-mill jet-puft.

oh: another favorite of the day was a sign outside big mama's. the chalkboard sidewalk sign read,

peach cobbler $3.50
parking $45.00
total $48.50.

(big mama's is a barbecue joint a few blocks from downtown.)

anyway, tomorrow is lots of cleaning and houseworky kinds of things that should be very gratifying. plus knitting, because i have a lot of that to do. and it'll feel like i had a three-day weekend to do it.

p.s. dan abrams is hot. he makes the ridiculosity of michael jackson coverage much more pleasant. that is all.

fathers.

i have lots of parents. two birth, two step, and two in law. i should have done this on mother's day, too, but i'll try to make up for it here.

my mother and i have our difficulties, but she really is a wonderful woman in so many ways.  she sacrifices for those she loves—most recently, the years she's spending nursing my ailing, elderly stepfather through his deteriorating physical and mental health. when i was younger, i was so grateful that she had such great skin; i seemed to have inherited it, but i fear that i haven't taken very good care of this gift and don't predict aging as well as this. for all the pain in her heart, i am so, so sad. i hope that she finds some peace.

i wrote on veterans' day about my stepfather, jerry. what a character. he already looked terrible at the wedding, in september 2005; he'd been diagnosed early that year with alzheimer's, but before that, he had been vibrant, funny, and full of good stories. i miss him.

then there's my own dad.

you might be thinking, "how unfortunate that the photographer gave him that crazy look in his eye." you'd be wrong. that's how he always looks. growing up, i heard him get called "groucho" a lot, but i always thought he looked a lot more like einstein than marx. but he really does make me laugh. a lot. you can see that i look a lot like him—i've inherited his crazy white hair, his curls, and, of course, his nose. and i either inherited or learned his sense of humor and his sailor's mouth.

and my stepmother has been with us since i was in college.

this isn't at all how i picture her. i think i've seen her in a dress like four times, ever, if that. usually i picture her in scrubs (she's an ob/gyn) or in sweats or pjs (since she's always on a freaky sleep schedule, being a doc who delivers babies who are rude enough to insist on pressing into the world at all hours) or in hockey gear. but i do always picture her smiling and talking; she, like my dad and me, is full of opinions, and the house is always full of lively conversation and debate. i love that. she's also big into entertaining—one of my favorite things about life at their house is the sheer number of people who come and go, especially for holidays and celebrations. always tons of food, and never the kinds of stuff i'd expect to be helping to make. and lots of cultures—our friends anna (russian) and vijay (indian), handan (turkish) and everette (virginian), and nathan's birth family are always representing.

and my newest parents are a complete grand prize for me: my mother- and father-in-law.

rudy was a monk before he married my mother-in-law back in 1962. (i remember their marriage year easily because of this awesome, dated painting that hangs in their bathroom.) he remains one of the most thoughtful people i know, in both senses of that word. i am so grateful that we didn't lose him a few years ago to some nasty complications from bypass surgery. he is smiling in this photo, if you can't tell; he adores nancy, and the house is always full of laughter and smiles (and opinions and stories—i love that there, too). nancy is a talker and has an easy laugh; we (half) joke that andrew married someone exactly like his mother. it really is kind of scary; it's a good thing that i love her so much.

these are my parents, all six of them, in different ways, of whom i think on days like mother's day and father's day. and lots of other days. i am so, so lucky to have all of them.

so, when i hear and see the news about what is happening in iran this week, i am all the more grateful that my parents are not likely to be shot in the streets, that they can speak their minds freely, and that they do not need to watch me die in the street from government-ordered gunfire. i am heartbroken for the parents risking—and some losing—their lives, their health, their jobs, their livelihoods; for the children they may lead behind; for the parents who may have to nurse their children back to health, guard them from danger in the street or their homes, or mourn them, maybe even having watched them die. i cannot imagine anything worse. please hold these parents in the light today and every day until they have peace.

more than you asked.

• people accused of crimes really do themselves no favors by talking directly with the press.

tonight, a bonus: a little primer on u.s. supreme court justiceship.  

• article iii of the constitution gives the supreme court specific areas of jurisdiction: any case arising under federal law; any case affecting ambassadors, ministers, or consuls; any case involving admiralty or maritime matters; any case in which the u.s. government is a party; any case in which two states are the parties; any case in which a state brings suit against a citizen of another state; any case in which citizens of different states are parties; any case in which citizens of one state claim land under grants of different states are parties or in which a state or citizen is a party on one side and a foreign state, citizen, or subject is a party on the other side.
  
• it has *original* jurisdiction (that is, it can be the court in which the case is brought first, without first ascending through federal district and circuit courts) in cases affecting ambassadors, ministers, or consuls and in cases in which a state is a party.
  
• other than those specific instances of original jurisdiction, the supreme court is a court of appeals. this means that it is not hearing issues of fact except in those cases—it is deciding strictly issues of law, and historically (usually) as narrowly as possible and only those issues brought by the parties.
• that's it. a supreme court justice has just those powers and just those responsibilities. it hears matters of fact only in those specific instances of original jurisdiction. otherwise, it hears matters of law alone.
• so what qualification must a supreme court justice have? he or she must be able to understand and interpret the law as enacted—whether statutory (codified by a legislative body) or grounded solely in precedent (i.e., a court does not typically rule contrary to precedent set by prior court decisions, at least not in that court's own jurisdiction—hence the motivation to decide cases on as narrow a basis as possible).
• and that is it. if the justice does not like what the law is—whether statutory or based in precedent—it is not the justice's right, authority, power, or responsibility to decide against that law (unless a law itself is being challenged, as in the case of a challenge against a law's constitutionality, in which case the law being interpreted is actually the constitution and whether it permits or prohibits the law being challenged). if the justice does not like the outcome of the lower cases, it is not the justice's right, authority, power, or responsibility to rule on those facts again.
• thus, as you can see, the supreme court justice has specific powers and specific responsibilities. just like for most jobs, the most important considerations in choosing a candidate to fill this position are the qualifications to perform those responsibilities and respect those powers. other considerations may also be important.
• the short version? i do not care one whit about the content of your past decisions—whether i agreed with the outcomes. what i care about is whether your past decisions reflect your understanding and interpretation of the applicable law.
• actually, the same is true of any appellate-court judge.
  

in less pressing news, i am 10 rounds away from the toe decreases on my latest sock, which makes me very smug and happy. and for reasons that escape me, i continue to dream about seth rogan. like, more than once a week. strange but true.

special weekend edition.

in friday-night news:

• it is equally plausible that members of congress are lying, incorrect, or telling the truth and that staff at the cia are lying, incorrect, or telling the truth.
  
• i do not have to agree with everything my president does if i trust, respect, and admire him. i can still be glad he is my president.
  
• dick cheney = nero.
  
• regent square yard sale = tomorrow.
  
• summer of socks + lace: it's on!
  

have a good weekend. i plan to :) 

the important stuff

as promised:

• pictures can be useful and informative.
  
• cheney update: still an ass. *and* wrong.
  
• "24" is fiction.
  
• sarah palin is writing a memoir. best test title heard thus far: "the audacity of hype."
  
• keith olbermann pronounces "abu ghraib" incorrectly.
  
• the fact that you *can* torture does not mean that you *should* torture. just like knitting.
  
• robert gibbs is a cell-phone-etiquette hero. (yes, i get the irony of this, given my own cell-phone faux pas.)
  

  that is all. 

got gauge?

if you, like me, have a thousand needle gauge/ruler gizmos but can never seem to have one handy when you want it, here's a goody: a standard business card measures 2 inches along its short side (3.5 along the long one, but most gauge guidelines are given in 1-, 2-, or 4-inch increments).

yes, anna. i did make a gauge swatch.

the league of extraordinary discipline.

looks like i need to hitch my wagon to the league of extraordinary discipline and quit worshiping the league of extraordinary hedonism. my headaches seem to be getting better (i wish that i could shout and sing that with choirs of angels opening the heavens with beams of light streaming down on you straight from god, but just the word "hallelujah!" is going to have to do for now), which means that i can finally start exercising, i hope, without fear of migraine knocking me out for a couple of days. my body was so sick of junk food when i got back from maryland sheep and wool on sunday that i was craving brown rice and vegetables monday for lunch, even in the face of plenty of available naughtiness in the house. and my wallet has been reduced to a smoking pile of ashes after a tear through the world of yarn and getting ready for summer vacations. oh, and that yarn and an equally large tear through the world of patterns means that i have a universe of projects surrounding me in virtually every room of my house (which is a lot—it's a big old house).

when i want to be self-disciplined, i can really kick it. it's that whole deciding to be my best self that holds me back. today, i'm hoping that that best self shows itself with a ferocity that scares away the self-indulgence for a while.

sleep?

since the running out of the meds, i have had a tough time sleeping. today, my head was really hurting (migraine + jaw + withdrawal, the latter of which sort of makes my head feel like my whole frontal lobe isn't really mine, isn't really the one that belongs there), so i staggered upstairs for a nap after getting the urgent work of the day finished. i napped HARD. you know that feeling when you sleep so deeply that you don't want to move when you finally start to wake up? like you're pinned to the bed? yeah. i think i was really exhausted. (it doesn't help that last night's dream was all about concentration camps and avoiding having the nazis pick me and my friends up in a door-to-door sweep. i haven't had one of those dreams in a while. no fun!)

tomorrow, i have biofeedback training over at the center for integrative medicine (the same place where i have the craniosacral therapy), and i'm looking forward to some productive errands and grocery shopping.

happy yet random: i learned, thanks to the intertubes, how to do the norwegian purl. (that sounds like a dance. purl norwegianly?)

   

it is AWESOME. it's a way to avoid having to reposition the working yarn in front of the work in order to get a purl stitch. this means no more hating ribbing, seed stitch, and moss stitch any more! i could even make that minimalist cardigan i love but avoided because of the stitch pattern. cool, huh? i've also cast on a tantric puzzle top using this weird, squooshy, but cool cotton+elastic yarn.

why, yes, thank you, i *am* feeling better.

as lisa and i have long said, everything is better once you've been to the bathroom. and, paraphrasing that, once you've had a little smackerel of something.

(okay, it also took some scolding of my knitting and starting a new project using some needles that i never use but love, but still. the food helped a LOT.)

so does seeing my boyfriend (aka president obama) on the teevee. i heart him so hard.

i made my shopping list for tuesday, which i'm trying to make my regular grocery-shopping day. i have appointments outside the house more often on tuesdays than on any other day of the week, plus it's not a terribly crowded time—middayish—to be at whole foods (and who isn't happier surrounded by the friendliest, most knowledgeable, and most helpful staff in all of grocering? and the most gorgeous produce and meat ever?). and best of all, it's one of the days on which i can see anna at the store, which combines two things that make me *very* happy: anna-banana + knitting.

i base my shopping list on my dr. phil food plan (mine comes from his book, but it's much the same as this online resource). the more closely i follow this plan, the better i feel, in every way. this week's plan presents some challenges: salmon, king crab, shrimp, and tuna steak. if you have ever planned a meal with me or been out to a restaurant with me, you know that i am an embarrassingly picky eater and that i cannot stand seafood. (i do not count a tuna-fish sandwich with mayo and, preferably, crunchies like minced onions and celery.) i have long wanted to make myself like seafood, so i googled "salmon for people who don't like fish" and read a few message boards. one suggestion that made plenty of sense to me was that you try seafood at a good restaurant, well prepared. another was that you learn to like seafood much like you learned to like vegetables. these rang particularly true for me in that i adore a good restaurant meal and in that there really aren't many vegetables that i dislike and i love them as simply prepared as possible—something that was not true when i was a child. so i asked smartboy—who LOVES seafood—what the best salmon is that he's had in town. this was a harder question for him to answer than i anticipated, since he gets salmon virtually any time we order in or eat at a restaurant. we talked a bit about my goals and my options, and we decided that we would go out to a seafood restaurant this week for those meals and see whether i could like any of them. we talked about mccormick and schmick's on the south side and legal sea foods downtown, but i know that i'll be more likely to make time for this if we try mitchell's at the waterfront, since i can combine an errand or two as well. so we'll start with mitchell's and see what happens thereafter.

i initially thought i should try to stick with the healthiest preparations possible, but i am going to give myself permission to ignore health considerations for these meals. after all, i probably learned to like zucchini after eating fried zucchini, broccoli after eating it with cheese sauce, and so on. and now i love just steamed or roasted vegetables best of all. so mitchell's has some interesting-looking preparations, including its shang hai preparation: the catch of the day steamed with fresh ginger (one of my three favorite flavors in the world, so hey!) and scallions and served with sticky rice, spinach, and rice-wine soy sauce. i'll try maybe some tuna with that. they also do a blue-crab and jumbo-shrimp penne with alfredo cream sauce (how do you go wrong with that?), and beer-battered jumbo gulf shrimp with sea-salt french fries, hush puppies, and cole slaw (the latter i will skip, thankyouverymuch). or maybe the chesapeake bay jumbo lump crab cakes with scallion mashed potatoes and sweet-corn saute. or the ginger-crusted atlantic salmon with sticky rice, stir-fried veggies, and orange-ginger butter sauce. the point is that, if i focus on the preparation and the sides, i can at least taste some of these things and try to learn to like them. i won't lose weight doing it, but eventually it'll be possible, i hope, to order them in healthier  ways. wish me luck.

and now i shall return to knitting. much more soothing than thinking about seafood.

knitorama

let me just start by saying ow. owie owowowow. not the migraine i had this afternoon, which has settled down, but my right hand and wrist. i knitted too much on my queen of beads socks too quickly, i guess, not enough breaks or something, and it HURTS. (the reward, however, is pretty wonderful: pretty new socks for me!)

making my living as i have for the past couple of decades making constant daily use of a mouse and keyboard, usually for double-digit numbers of hours per day and usually for six days per week, i am no stranger to wrist and hand pain. the difference with this is that cracking my wrist and hand joints is *not helping* this time. no response. it's not a joint thing but a muscle thing, and the muscles ache like leg cramps that wake you up in the middle of the night. (if you haven't had those, they are tearfully painful. eat a banana.) from the heel of my hand to my elbow. as soon as i finish my two current edits, i'm headed to natural stitches to buy one of those wrist support thingies. a brace, i guess it's called, to compress? i have no idea how they work, but i'm really hoping that they do. :(

that said, pain aside, the weekend has been really fun. i finished these socks, which is more gratifying than i remember finishing a project being (yes, anna, *you are right*), and i'm wearing them, which is also more gratifying than i remember wearing my handknits (again: *you are right*).

the funnest parts were hanging out with anna, as usual. saturday afternoon, i went over to the yarn shop to see (and hear) franklin habit read from his book, speak, and sign copies. he is so full of win that i can't believe that he fits it all in such a compact package. i love the book, too.

after the signing, anna and i went off to a little going-away party for our friend tobi, who is moving to nashville. so sad :( it was fun, though, held at the floral design shop that our friend april owns, which is just gorgeous, catered by our friend michelle, and attended by lots of people i haven't seen in a few years. and i met a few new people, too. punch, mini cheesecakes, lemon-filled cupcakes, spanakopita, crudites, and lots of other things i can't remember, all yummy.

then this morning, we took a class on the history and techniques of lace knitting and knitted lace. i had to escape to the car to sleep off a migraine for a bit in the middle, but it was really a wonderful class. i learned a lot and had fun; a day doesn't get much better than that. oh—and one thing that has made the day even better: i cast on a pair of socks using a merino-cashmere blend that is positively decadent. i am in love.