Thanksgiving

For the past eight years or so, I have run Oregon Road Runners Club Turkey Trot at the Oregon Zoo. And every year, on Thanksgiving, the weather gods smile upon us here in Western Oregon, bringing us a crisp, cold, dry day with blindingly bright morning sunshine. Well, our luck had to run out some time.

Thanksgiving was wet and cold with incessant, pounding rain. The course is only four miles, but very hilly. It begins at the zoo and is a fairly steep downhill for two miles, to the Rose Garden and entrance to the Japanese Garden at the bottom of the hill, where we turn around and slog uphill for two miles. I actually ran pretty fast this year, probably because I just wanted it to end. Here's me, bedraggled, afterwards. Note the mountain goat in the background.

Every year, at this race, I seem to get behind some bodybuilder guy who is yelling at his kid to run faster. It's a difficult course - not really suitable for your average ten year-old kid. Unless your ten year-old is a distance running prodigy. Your average kid who plays sports would find this difficult. Yet, every year when I run this thing, I encounter these high-power dads yelling things like, "Suck it up!" to their kids.

Speaking of kids, Isaac was registered to run the "Tot Trot", a half-mile "fun run". However, when we realized that we would have to stand around in our already soaking wet clothes for another forty-five minutes until said trot would commence, we thought it might not be so fun after all. So, we all agreed to come home, put on warm, dry clothes and build a fire instead. Isaac received a t-shirt with his registration, so we chose to look at this way: for twelve dollars, he got a nice long-sleeved shirt with a turkey on the front.

After I thoroughly dried out by the fire, I baked two pies - pecan (my first one ever - I used the recipe from the Joy of Cooking) and pumpkin (my mom's famous recipe):

Later that afternoon, we went to our friends Josh and Racheli's house, where there was poker:

good food and conversation:

good friends:

much preschooler goofiness:

and family, of course, for whom I am most thankful.

Isaac, the Gallant Knight

Isaac's latest obsession: All things knightly. Here he is with homemade shield, lance and mask. We are not discouraging this interest, hoping that he will learn some knightly virtues along the way.

Kitchen Still Life

My last entry, the rant below, seems ridiculous now. I guess that's why it's good to write things down, to get them out. The irritation didn't last long. In fact, it very quickly turned to amusement.

Lots happening here: a major shift, change that's necessary and important. I have great hopes for 2010, that it will be a much different, much better year.

Rant du Jour

I was late in dropping off Isaac at school this morning, and therefore, I had to enter the security code to open the door.

There are several keypads outside various gates and doors at Isaac's school, but the one outside Isaac's building is often temperamental. The numbers sometimes stick and when they do, this messes up the whole process. And, while I always remember the code, it seems like I've gotten the door to open with both the asterisk and the pound sign, so I'm never quite sure which is the correct symbol to use.

So, this morning, as I struggled with the sticky keypad with no success, another mother and her five year-old son came up behind us.

I laughed and said something like, "It's not cooperating. Is it the asterisk or the pound sign? Do you remember?"

The five year-old yelled, "NO!" and pushed me out of the way (and into the flower bed) to enter the code into the keypad.

While I was registering my shock that this mother was going to allow her five year-old to speak this way to an adult, not to mention shove an adult, the mother turned to me and said, "Did you make sure to get all of that?"

Excuse me? I was stunned into silence, as I normally am when someone is so rude. I'm sure that I stood there with my mouth open, waiting for her to realize how condescending she sounded.

But of course, she didn't. I'm sure that's normal behavior for both of them. And the worst part: As we walked up the stairs behind these two, Isaac turned and said to me, "Mama, you pushed too many numbers." Like he got the message: Kid, your mom's an idiot.

Feeling defensive, I said emphatically, "No, I didn't! The numbers were sticking!"

This is all ridiculous, I know. But it saddens and angers me when people behave this way. It's even worse when parents allow their children to do so.

Thanks for listening. Sorry. I couldn't help it. I had to vent.

photo courtesy of thirtyfootscrew at flickr.com

Ishbel the First

I finished another Ysolda project from Whimsical Little Knits last week: the wildly popular Ishbel.

Ishbel is a shawl pattern that can be made in two sizes. I chose the small. For those unfamiliar with knitting shawls, you cast on very few stitches (in this case, three) and rapidly increase so that the cast-on stitches are not visible as such when the piece is finished. In fact, the tiny cast on row is really just the center of the straight, wide bottom of the shawl. Make sense? Sort of, I know.

I chose a heavier yarn than the pattern called for. Instead of using laceweight or fingering, I chose Louet Gems Sport in Teal. This is a very sturdy, 100% merino wool. I used smaller needles than the pattern suggested, too - US 5 instead of US 6.

For a while, I was worried that the shawl would be too small and too stiff - not drapey enough. But, I figured that this would be my first, not only, Ishbel, and therefore a learning process. But, I streeeeetttchhed it out and blocked the heck out of it:

I love the color and am happy with the results.

So happy, in fact, that I've already cast on for Ishbel the Second.

Finished photos and details to come...

What I'm Reading Now

I finished Bittersweet, the Matt McAllester book, in the high school English class where I was subbing on Thursday. What a sad tale. In recent years, even among professionals, there were still so many misconceptions about the manifestations of mental illness. The saddest part of McAllester's story is that his mother's life could have been so much different and so much better. So many ifs.

I began another sad tale later that day, during my lunch period: Without a Map, a memoir by Meredith Hall, who is essentially abandoned and banished from her community by her family, friends and acquaintances when she becomes pregnant in 1965, at age sixteen. What is most stunning about Hall's story is the extraordinary cruelty shown by those who were supposed to love and protect her most. I am only thirty or so pages into this book, but I am already riveted. This coldness, judgment and abandonment changes the entire trajectory of Hall's life. Again, so many things could have been different. More ifs.

Vanilla Icing Beret

I joined the Whimsical Little Knits knitalong at Happy Knits a few weeks ago. My first finished object from the book? This hat:

For the non-knitters in the audience, Whimsical Little Knits is the first self-published collection of knitting patterns from Ysolda Teague, one of the darlings of the knitting world (Yes, there are darlings of the knitting world. We have our own celebrities). Ysolda is a ridiculously young (24, I believe), ridiculously talented designer from Edinburgh, Scotland. She has a lovely blog and lovely patterns and seems to live a charmed life. So, of course, we all want to make her patterns. Maybe we're hoping that some of the fabulosity will rub off on us.

Anyhoo, this beret was my first project from Whimsical Little Knits, as well as my first Ysolda project. I have been an admirer of her work for some time and have many of her designs in my queue, but I needed a little push and the support of a group of knitters to prod me into Ysoldaland.

There were lots of firsts with this project. It was my first time making an I-cord (You can't see it in this photo, but there's a little I-cord knot at the top of the swirl of the hat). It was also my first time knitting something with cream-colored yarn (I don't have much confidence in my ability to keep things looking pristine). And, as I mentioned, it was my first time knitting an Ysolda pattern.

I love this hat...and this yarn - Elsebeth Lavold Silky Flamme - an Aran weight, thick-and-thin wool, silk and alpaca blend. I knitted with US10 needles and used about 1.25 skeins. I purchased this wonderful yarn at Close Knit. They have lots and lots of it, in many beautiful colorways. The hat took me about six days, but I'm working on a few other projects. If you were working exclusively on this hat, you could probably finish in a day or two. Oh, and in case you were wondering, I made the larger size. I am coming to terms with the fact that I have a large head. I mean, I always knew this, but never bind off as loosely as I should. And then, I have to go back and bind off again.

I finished this hat while subbing in an eighth grade English class, while we listened to Patrick Swayze read The Outsiders on iTunes. Somehow, that makes me love this hat even more.