Everything Old is New Again

Spring has sprung and that means it’s time for the ritual airing of the tents.

Holly came over on Easter Sunday so we could set up our tents in preparation for the first campout of the season (T minus 10ish days and counting).  It’s been ridiculously windy and the tents have blown all over the yard, despite being staked down – thank goodness the fence is nice and high, otherwise you might spot tumbletents gamboling through the streets of North Arlington.

There hasn’t been much knitting lately.  As usual, I have a half dozen projects in some state of execution. A cardigan, a sock, and a shawl have all been in rotation lately but none of them are really getting me excited.

I did finish Molly though.

Whipped it up using Shepherd’s Wool in a red that didn’t photograph terribly well, but I LOVE this hat.  I wore it all winter (if we want to call that nonsense we experienced this year ‘winter’).  The ends aren’t woven in, of course, but how else would I be able to tell it was mine?

 

Happy Easter

 

Week One – Photo a Day April

At barely a quarter of the way through the year, I found myself already stumbling in my quest to finish a photo-a-day project for 2012.  Holly came across the Fat Mum Slim photo-a-day project so I decided to try to follow her prompts for April.  This is the first week’s effort:

1. Your Reflection, 2. Colour, 3. Mail, 4. Someone Who Makes You Happy, 5. Tiny, 6. Lunch, 7. Shadow, 8. Colour – alternate, 9. Shadow – alternate

The last two are alternates for days 2 and 7.  I think the center square is my favorite.

 

Let’s Go, Caps!

This was my view through much of the first period of the Caps v. Cats game Thursday night.  Thanks to a great friend, we were gifted free seats and were there in person to see the Caps clinch a playoff spot.

Will try to be better about this whole pesky blogging thing.  Since it looks like I’m going to be leaving D.C. within the next month or so, I should specify, I don’t have much of a choice in the matter (stupid unemployment).

 

Worth the Sniffles

It was a chilly weekend in Ocean City, MD, but I love going to the beach in the off season.  While I had a teensy, weensy headache, I’m glad the early dawn light streaming through our east-facing windows woke me up so I could shiver on the balcony and snap a few pics.

 

Desert Island Discs

I’ve been thinking about music a lot lately.   Part of it tracks back to my band-geek days in high school, but I feel like music – especially really BAD music – has formed the soundtrack to my life in so many ways.  “Don’t Stop” by Fleetwood Mac will always remind me of the days right after my BFF Cassie and her big brother Justin moved out of the neighborhood while I was in elementary school (probably because I misheard / rewrote the lyrics “Yesterday’s gone” to “Justin is gone”).  Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life will always be an 8 track that was played Saturday mornings while I was forced to perform odious chores around the house.  I can’t hear Elton John’s “Benny and the Jets” without recalling my dad talking about how I used to run around as a wee one singing “D-D-D-Dani and the Jets,” because that’s how I roll.

Middle school brought an introduction to my band-geek days and a bizarre obsession with the Beach Boys.  High school brought endless marching and concert band memories, especially I was fortunate enough to have a band director who loved to use pop music in our halftime shows.  Whitney, Madonna, Miami Sound Machine, the Eurythmics, and – God help us – Eddie Murphy all took their place alongside more staid, traditional tunes.  27 years later, I still get a noticeable twitch when I hear “Stars and Stripes Forever.”  Find a flute/piccolo player that doesn’t.

During a ridonkulously long car trip back from North Carolina last weekend, the podcast we were listening to raised the question of your favorite movie soundtrack.  Then today, a book I was reading posed the perennial “What CDs would you have if stranded on desert island?” question.  My responses to both topics are equally jumbled but I’ll give it a shot.

In no particular order:

• Four Seasons (Vivaldi): While Pachelbel’s Canon in D is probably my favorite classical piece (with Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony a close second), I’d have to go with Four Seasons for the overall feel.
• 1 (The Beatles): Yes, there are arguably better Beatles albums out there.  No, I don’t own any of them.
• Immaculate Collection (Madonna): …because every desert island needs a dance party
• Under the Table and Dreaming (Dave Matthews Band): I could’ve just as easily gone with Crash or Before These Crowded Streets, but this was my first and it always has a special place.  Mostly memories of me and Steph driving between Virginia and Ohio, trying to memorize the words to “Ants Marching”
• Forrest Gump Soundtrack: Oldies fix
• Sinatra Reprise (Frank Sinatra): Ol’ Blue Eyes.  ‘Nuff said.
• In My Tribe (10,000 Maniacs): “Verdi Cries” alone drops my blood pressure 20 points
• 101 (Depeche Mode): I was going to go with Music for the Masses, but I want the live version of “Somebody”

…can’t even come up with ten.  Sure, I could force it – Squeeze Singles, Best of Steve Miller Band, Thriller – but to a certain extent they’d just be filler.

You’ll note the vast majority of these CDs aren’t even from this millennium.  I just don’t have the same relationship with music that I used to – at least not with entire CDs.  Nowadays, I download individual songs that I know I love, rather than risk the entire disc. Not only that, but I don’t have the same sorts of associations.  OMD’s Best of… CD will forever be playing rummy with Steph in her Manning dorm room.  Nylon Curtain will always be hanging out at my middle school BFF’s house, where she played “Goodnight Saigon” for me for the first time (on vinyl, no less).  Mighty, Mighty Bosstones & Alanis Morrissette will always be DC United’s first season, tailgating with the handful of Screaming Eagles that were around back in the day.

My friends Paul and Dave would be HORRIFIED by this list.  I don’t have deep insightful comments about how musically significant any of these songs are; my choices and reactions are much more emotional.  I’m okay with that.

 

Happy Birthday, Dr. King

“Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope”

 

Playing Catch Up

This weekend was all about catching up with old friends.  Holly and I hopped in her car and headed north on a quickie roadtrip to catch up with some Hash friends in eastern PA.  After I dragged her through the woods on a four-mile mosey, we ate, drank and caught up with some folks that I haven’t seen for years.  It’s always great to reconnect with these idiots that I only see once or twice a year.

Before the descent into low-grade debauchery, we did manage to get a little yarn ogling in.  The Yarn Garden in Carlisle was lovely and cozy and all those things I like in a yarn store.  Unfortunately, they didn’t have a MadTosh colorway that I couldn’t live without but I did snag some DIC Smooshy for a shawlette to be whipped up one of these days.

All along West Pomfret, outside the Yarn Garden, the parking meters were decorated with meter sweaters.  I particularly liked the pompoms on this one, but they extended down most of the block.  Holly studiously avoided touching the one that had a vaguely mohair-ish appearance.  I can’t imagine why.

Once again, despite my best laid plans, I didn’t get a lot of knitting done on the road.  The toe on my second Paper Moon / Moon River sock is coming along.  Yes, I cast those socks on en route to Georgia back in October, but we know what a notoriously slow (not to mention easily distracted) knitter I am.  General knitting update forthcoming – I actually have a FO for 2012 already!!!

 

 

Ring Out the Old

Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true.
~ Lord Alfred Tennyson

It’s 2012 and there are so many major things in my life that need to be taken care of that no mere New Year’s resolution can address.  First and foremost at this stage of the game is getting healthy.   Coming down with the Fayetteville Flu after Prom is all well and good – even expected – but this is week three of a bone-rattling, rib-cracking, non-stop coughing extravaganza that I simply cannot shake.  Originally diagnosed as a common cold, more recently upgraded to bronchitis, I’ve been sidelined by this death rattle for far too long.

The problem is, I can’t move on to THE most important thing until this gets settled.  I need a job, like yesterday.   Are you hiring?  Have leads?  I’m serious.  The savings are gone and I can only borrow so much from my family.  My next move is literally a move, to Savannah to live with my aunt.  Truly the last thing I want to do, but that may be my only option.  We’ll see what January brings.

Despite the death rattle, I did manage to go to Dayton for Christmas to see my grandmother.  She turned 85 last year and I know there won’t be many holidays left with her, so it meant a lot to me to be able to see her.  Unfortunately, she wouldn’t let me take a picture of her with her Christmas gift.

I daresay she loves it.  She promised she’d have someone take a photo of her wearing it once she “buys a new suit or dress worthy of it.”  Gotta love grandmothers.

The drive to Ohio was long – dear GAWD, it was long – but it was good.  I listened to an audiobook I downloaded from the library (Bossypants – two thumbs up), I sang along with bad oldies music and filled up the tank eleventy-billion times.  I did get to see a kick-ass sunrise though.

Almost made only getting three hours of sleep worth it.

 

 

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

It’s impossible for me to think of Christmas without thinking of my mother.  Not just because I lost her three years ago today, but because she loved this holiday so very much.

My father and I would often laugh about her starting to buy Christmas presents in March, only to have completely lost them by June.  If we were lucky, they turned up before the holiday but more often than not, they’d show up around the following Memorial Day the following year to be sheepishly handed over to the recipients.  She and I once got into an enormous argument about a present I’d allegedly received, only to have her apologize the following April when it turned up in the back of a closet.

Earlier this week, I cranked up the iPod Holiday playlist and started making cookies for my aunt and cousin.  In the past, my mother would’ve created elaborate cookie baking schedules and prepackaged ingredients for each recipe, but I was only making one kind of cookies this year  – Russian Tea Cakes.  Usually magic cookies, date-nut pinwheels & lemon crisps would also be on the list, but Russian Tea Cakes are their favorites and since I was shipping them south to Savannah, I decided to keep it simple.  I only cried a couple of times, thinking of past Christmases with my mom while creaming butter and sugar.  Looking forward to the time when I can experience those memories and be glad for those times rather than saddened by them.