Spring, Sproing, Sprung...

This pretty much sums it up for me right now...



The cycle of Wednesday/Saturday/Wednesday storms has been relentless but the winter from hell is almost in the books. And it can't end fast enough for me. The signs of Spring are popping up all over. Here's my list of reasons to rejoice:

1. Happy Easter! Today we celebrate rebirth and resurrection, a perfect analogy for Spring. It is a quiet day in our house but it used to mean Easter Egg hunts, baskets full of candy and a special new outfit. Now the Easter Bunny wears a Postal Service uniform and delivers a basket to UVM a couple of days early. This year it was filled with homemade chocolate cookies from Dad. My contribution was the prerequisite Easter goodies...Marshmallow Peeps, Jellybeans, a chocolate bunny, almond M&M's and some Ferrero Rocher chocolates. I also added some knitted goodies:


Aren't they cute? The peep pattern is here and the eggs pattern is here. (One suggestion: if you knit the eggs, do them in the round with dpns instead of dealing with the seaming nightmare.) I can see myself knitting a lot of these puppies in the future. They are so quick and easy. The basket was a self-designed pattern, one I hope to find the time to write up one of these days.

Here is what Easter looked like for my family in 1967. Aren't we all just the height of fashion? I'm the one on the far left looking totally underwhelmed by the whole experience.



My father was taking the picture. He insisted on a picture EVERY Easter and we always had the same conversation:

DAD: Stop squinting
ME: I can't... the sun is in my eyes
DAD: I can't get a good picture if you are squinting
ME: I can't HELP it. THE SUN IS IN MY EYES!
DAD: Oh, stop...it isn't that bad.
ME: YES IT IS...IT HURTS MY EYES

And then I would start crying and he would tell me to go in the house. Good times.

2. St. Patrick's Day. Despite the fact that it is usually snowing that day (as it was again this year), the wearing o' the green always lifts my spirits. My days of green beer at the pub at 11AM are long behind me and I haven't been to a good St. Paddy's Day parade in many years but my Irish heritage puts a little spring in my step and I always swear I can smell Spring in the air buried in amongst the corned beef and cabbage. This year I made a little something for my cookie to take back to school after her break to celebrate the day:


Meet HarryO'Bear! He was a quick knit and a cutie-patootie to boot. His pattern is here. He has a cousin that I made for my sister to help her through some very tough times (thanks to her trailer-trash tomcat of a husband... I think you can probably figure that situation out without much more detail.) Here he is:


[Digression Alert!... What is it with all of these sorry old men and their sex scandals lately anyway? Why can't they learn to keep it in their pants? Doesn't seem like rocket science to me. And these wives who "stand by their man no matter what" really baffle me. In their shoes I would kick that trash out to the curb where it belongs. It's not as if it's a one time dalliance. In the high profile cases lately this has been a long term behavior pattern. Honey, take him to the cleaners, empty out all of the pockets and run, don't walk as fast as you can as far away as possible! Once you have all the assets my guess is that Mr. Stud won't get a second glance from the chippies. What a shock when he realizes that what they really want is in his back pocket not under the zipper!]

3. March Madness!!!! As I write this the annual "big dance" is underway with its usual upsets and high drama. This year's bracket-busters have been Duke and Georgetown (so far). I can almost hear the groans and cheers as we all watch a David in baggy shorts stick it to Goliath. There is something about the drama and excitement of the tournament that has me glued to the screen (TV and computer) for almost three weeks. GO NORTH CAROLINA TARHEELS!

4. First Day of Spring!!! Yahoo!!! As much as old man winter fights it, he is on the run. The days are getting longer, brighter and warmer. He might throw another snowstorm at us (and he probably will!) but it's only a matter of time before the winter coats get put away for good!

Happy Spring everybody!

Ok, about this cat thing...

I have gotten some "feedback" about the comment about my sister's cat in my shawl post. Let me clarify something. They started it. I wasn't born disliking cats. We actually had a cat when I was young who earned my respect and admiration. Puss was a champion hunter, a no-nonsense "doing my job so leave me be" kind of creature. My only complaint about him was his tendency to leave his trophies just outside the front door where a moment's inattention meant a squishy step on a dead rabbit, mole or mouse. One summer my sister and her little friend Debbie thought it would be fun to dress him in doll clothes and carry him around like a baby. He tolerated it for a day or two but clearly was not amused. He finally made his feelings known by planting his front claws in Debbie's face, barely missing her eye. For this little episode of "kitty road rage" he earned himself a trip to the local animal shelter. Grossly unfair? Yes...but the trip probably saved my parents a messy lawsuit and cancellation of their homeowner's policy.

My relationship with cats went downhill from there. Our next cat, Romper, declared me the enemy from the get-go. My shoes mysteriously filled with catshit. She chose me to yowl at in the wee hours. My stack of freshly washed clothes was her bed of choice. We got off to a bad start and things only got worse. Ok, I wasn't totally innocent, I'll admit. One evening when she wouldn't leave me alone as I was trying to study in my room I dropped her down the laundry chute...but I knew there was a stack of clothes at the bottom to cushion her fall. My departure for college and subsequent apartments finally gave us the "time-out" that we both needed from each other.

Living on my own I switched to dogs, a mutt named Ralph and a Golden Retriever named Molly. I fell hopelessly in love with the canine species, enjoying the way they gave so much to our relationships, always wanting to please.

Then when Meredith was about three she asked for a kitty. We were "between pets" at the time so we cautiously agreed to give it a try for her sake. Brendan felt the same way I did about cats but she was so insistent. Enter Wilbur, a small Maine Coon kitten, cute as a button but with a huge attitude problem. No warm-and-fuzzy cuddle sessions for him. He entered the house in the attack mode and set his sights on making our lives miserable. I was his special target. It was as if Romper had come back to finish the job of tormenting me begun so many years earlier. Ambushes from under beds and tables were part of the morning routine. I resorted to putting panty hose on in the car each morning to ensure I had a pair without rips. His favorite technique was to wake me up about 3AM by climbing on the bed and trying to separate my big toe from the rest of my foot like a piece of the toughest beef jerky...and through three layers of blankets! I wasn't about to turn the other cheek. He loved to jump on the side of the bathtub as I was drawing Meredith's bath to watch the water come out of the faucet with intense fascination. With a little pop as I walked by he suddenly found himself in the tub, staring up at me with an evil glare. I knew I would pay for that moment of temptation and I always did. The war between us kept escalating at a dizzying rate.


He went to work shredding our furniture, earning him a trip to the vet's to be declawed. We had him neutered on the vet's advice, both to prevent him from passing on his orneriness but also to "calm him down." HAH! That only seemed to make him madder! His nastiness earned him the nickname "Wilbur, the demon cat from hell." But we held on in deference to Meredith's wishes. Then came the night she told me to shut her door at bedtime because she was afraid of Wilbur. That was all I needed. The next morning the ad went into the paper and by the end of the week he had a new home. We all breathed a sigh of relief... and went out to get a puppy. Lady, that puppy, was with us for 16 years, a treasured, loving member of our family.

Some people are cat people. We are dog people. A lucky few are both. Just as the world needs right-brained and left-brained people, visionaries and realists, Red Sox fans and Yankee fans, it also probably needs cat people and dog people. We know where we stand on the issue. I respect that some people have loving relationships with their cats. I probably never would. Cats always seem to me to be very two-faced...all over you when they want something but otherwise acting as if they can't be bothered with such inferior creatures as we humans. Even my sister who has always worshipped cats admits that her current cat is an ungrateful, nasty creature who only shows any interest in her at mealtime. She volunteers at a cat rescue shelter to get her feline affection. I once suggested that she make her own aloof and nasty cat part of the adoption process she works on, a suggestion she chose to ignore. I guess that's what makes her a cat person...and me NOT a cat person. I'll take my goofy, affectionate, tongue-lolling dog, thank you very much. She loves me no matter what, with food in sight or not, totally unconditionally!

Some weeks it just doesn't pay to get out of bed!

I have obviously pissed off somebody upstairs because, to put it mildly, this week has SUCKED!
An unexpected major car repair, a flat tire, the death of the garbage disposal, not to mention the ungodly cold, all conspired to make this a week we wish we could just wipe off the calendar.

And just when we thought we had hit rock bottom, this happens:



Yeah, those are crutches, that's an aircast on my foot that is elevated above heart level to reduce swelling. All that is missing in the picture is the four times daily ice packs and the bottle of pain relievers.

I was walking the dog Tuesday night and was about a half mile from home when I tripped on some broken pavement (not even on ice, mind you!) At precisely that same moment Isla spotted her favorite ballfield and bolted in a frenzy of excitement. A car was coming towards us so I instinctively held on to the leash for fear that she would get hit. My mistake. I went down in a heap, twisting my ankle grotesquely in the process. Isla got very upset and starting jumping all over me, making it impossible to stand up. The woman in the car stopped to ask if I was alright, convinced, I'm sure, that Isla was in attack mode. I foolishly said yes and off she went. When I finally stood up I immediately knew something was very wrong. And, of course, I had not thought to bring my cellphone so was forced to hobble the half mile back home in the bitter cold, navigating some very treacherously icy sidewalks along the way. (An aside here: WHY THE HELL WON'T PEOPLE CLEAR THE ICE OFF THEIR SIDEWALKS IN THIS WEATHER???) When I finally made it back home, sobbing like a baby, my ankle was swollen up like a softball. When Brendan insisted that we go to the emergency room I didn't give him an argument. Two hours later, with x-rays completed, the verdict was a severe sprain and I was ordered to bed for the rest of the week. So here I lay, knitting, napping, watching crappy tv, reading, napping some more, catching up on emails, IMing Meredith, napping even more and hoping desperately to get on with my life sometime soon.

All I can say is: THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

...back from my alien abduction

OK, so I've been missing from the blogging scene for a little while. Funny how life gets in the way of things. My last real entry was sometime in late October. A lot of yarn has flowed over the needles since then ... and do I have spectacular pictures to show for it, excusing me for being so neglectful of my blog? Of course not.

Here's a quick summary of my life over the past 2+ months...

Early November: trip to Vermont to celebrate Meredith's 21st birthday



AMAZING dinner at Butler's Restaurant in Essex (The New England Culinary Institute)





Along with some spectacular scenery along the Kancamagus Highway...





















It is a wonderful weekend, even if it seems as if only yesterday that this was my Meredith:




















How can she POSSIBLY be 21? There is NO Way!


Mid-November: I am back in Burlington to pick her up for Thanksgiving Break, a luxurious full week at home. We also start bringing some of her things home in preparation for her Spring semester Abroad in Italy. We have a great time with her that week, including our annual Mother/Daughter "Black Friday" 7AM run to the mall. Gotta love the adrenalin rush beating back the sale-crazed masses. We hit the motherlode as we look for dressy grown-up clothes for my little pookie to wear during her stay in Milan since word on the street is that jeans and t-shirts aren't going to cut it. She's thinking Manolo Blanick... I'm thinking bankruptcy court. My Meredith is a fashionista shoeaholic. Sending her to the fashion center of the universe is a bit like sending a hardcore alcoholic on a five month pub crawl.

The Sunday after Thanksgiving has me back on the I-95/101/I-93/I-89 loop up to Burlington and back to bring her back for the final push. I think her RA is beginning to think I've moved into her room. God forbid... those days are but a hazy memory although I love her room!





































(By the way, in case you missed it, the Yankees are her life. Pinstriping her room walls with ribbon was the ultimate homage.) Dorm rooms sure have come a LONG way since my undergrad days in the Stone Age. Kinda makes me want to go back to those days...ok, maybe not. I value sleep and peaceful evenings far too much to survive in that world.

Early December: back to Portland for the wild ride that is the holiday season. ("I AM being jolly, dammit!") Time spirals out of control, the "to do" list just keeps getting longer and longer and I have to fight back the urge to get in the car and drive off into the sunset as far as my gas tank will take me. I start to envy people in the Witness Protection Program. They don't have a triple digit Christmas card list to finish. Scrooge has nothing on me as I grouse and grumble. The annual craft fair at work is a chance to showcase (and sell!) some of the knitting projects lying around. Mental Note to self: start building inventory a lot earlier next year (instead of working feverishly the two weeks before!) The Maine-made products baskets are prepared for the out-of-town relatives. I write the annual "year in review" newsletter for the pile of Christmas cards. Errands, lists, parties, decorating the house, baking cookies, delivering cookies to friends, craft fairs, shopping for the family... by mid-December I've developed a nervous tic and the inability to finish a complete sentence as my mind races out of control.

Mid-December: It's time for the final pilgrimage to Burlington to retrieve my finals-weary darlin' and her roomload o' stuff for the final trip home. We schlepp like nobody's business and shoehorn everything into the car for a wild ride home. ("Mirrors? We don't need no stinkin' mirrors!")

It occurs to me that poor Isla still doesn't have her own stocking for the mantle. (We guiltily used Lady's old stocking last year.) So, having so little else on my agenda, I decide to knit her a Christmas stocking. (WHAT was I thinking!?!) Amazingly, I do it and here is the result:



Such a beautiful receptacle for the coal she is on track to get from Santa. The dog has some serious listening issues. Of course, Santa ends up relenting and brings her bags of snacks and toys. What a sucker the old fat man is.

It's now late December and Christmas is breathing down our necks. The Christmas cards are sent off with a sigh of relief. We make our trip up to the Christmas tree mountain to cut down the tree we chose in October. Things start to come together at the house. Here are some pictures to prove we pulled it off:







<=so many cookies






Isla wonders where the coffee-table snacks went. It was such fun to bury her nose in the chex mix =>










<= sideboard splendor







Meredith's "shoe" tree =>








I manage to knit one of the socks I had planned to give Brendan for Christmas. He looks a little puzzled when he opens the package with only one sock. I reassure him that the other one is on its way (I finished it the next day). When Holiday season 2006 went into the history books, we survived another Christmas with only a few ruffled feathers. We took pleasure and comfort in the traditions we have developed over the years and ushered in 2007 with a new tradition: the New Year's Eve Sushi making party! Good times!

Now it's on the next adventure, Meredith's departure on January 14th for a semester in Milan Italy. You have to know there will be some "interesting" posts as that chapter in our lives unfolds. Stay tuned...

Happy freakin' birthday to me!

Yesterday was my birthday...number 55. I thought the double-nickel deserved a little extra treatment so I took the day off and planned some special "me-time". I never get to do that since this is such a bazootie time at work. The appointments were scheduled, the weather forecast was ideal. All systems were go for a great day.

My first appointment was with a cup of gourmet coffee in my special "It's Good to be the Queen" cup. It was just me, my coffee, my knitting and the Today show. mmm-MMM-mmm --good stuff!



My plan was to take myself out to breakfast at my favorite diner: Bayou Kitchen. A plate of "gator eggs" with a side of andouille sausage and some cornbread was just what I needed to kick off the rest of the day. Unfortunately, the Bayou Kitchen operates on a rather whimsical schedule, known only to them and possibly determined by the hangover level of the chef. The Saints game on Monday night must have been a rough one for him. No Bayou Kitchen-- damn! So, it was off to my second choice, Bintliff's. But I did get a Cajun Benedict from their menu so I felt a little vindicated. It really was delicious!



Next it was off to my haircut with my favorite hairdresser, Nancy, my neighbor across the street. Not only does she do a fantabulous job cutting my hair, but we neatly solve the world's problems, as well as those of our immediate neighbors in our hour together.



Of course, at that point, the camera battery crapped out on me again. It was just as well, my next stop was a marvelous, relaxing full body massage. I really don't think pictures of THAT appointment would be either tasteful or appropriate. My friend Ellen did a great job of unknotting the tension kinks in my shoulders, back and legs. What a wonderful way to throw off the everyday stresses. Little did I realize how soon all of that good work would be undone.

The rest of the afternoon was uneventful...lunch, an afternoon of napping and knitting, and anticipating a marvelous dinner out with Brendan at Portland's premier restaurant, Fore Street.

We had 6:30 reservations so we decided to take Isla up to Baxter Woods for her usual evening fun run as soon as he came home from work at 4:30. She did her usual amount of pulling and dragging, excited to be going to her favorite place. Once up there and unleased she was off like a race horse, sprinting through the woods, criss-crossing the path we were walking until suddenly she emerged from the bushes with a noticable limp. As we checked her front left paw my stomach flipped. Blood was gushing from the area near her large pad. As we looked closer, we noticed a gash so large that it had nearly severed the pad from her foot completely. Brendan ran home to get the car and I sat with her, trying to calm her, until he arrived. Those twenty minutes seemed like an eternity.

We made the decision to race her up to our vet's office, praying that it was one of their late nights to be open. It was now 5:30. The bleeding was profuse and she was obviously in a lot of pain. Our wonderful vet took her in right away, assessed the cut and determined that she needed surgery. Brendan called the restaurant, explained the situation and they told us to relax and get there as soon as we could... they would hold the reservation. That was huge, considering that a reservation there is no mean feat. I suggested that we reschedule but Brendan wanted to wait to see if we could still salvage a birthday dinner that was actually on my birthday. He's such a sweetie. We were both frantic about Isla's condition but he still wanted my day to be special.

They did surgery immediately, putting in over 20 sutures. The vet said it was a very bad cut and that there actually was tendon showing. Only time will tell if it heals completely because she warned us that injuries of this sort often re-occur. She also said that another vet from a nearby Emergency Animal Clinic happened to be there and mentioned that she had a case of a dog who nearly died because he had been running (also in Baxter Woods) and had severed his femoral artery. They came to the conclusion that the culprit in both cases was most likely broken glass.

The woods seem to have become a drinking hangout for a certain element who then get their kicks by leaving the broken bottles around. So many people are up there with their dogs running loose, I would hate to have another family experience the anguish we did last night -- or even worse. Isla absolutely adores going there and the freedom she has to just run at full tilt. Unfortunately, she probably won't be able to do that again. We will have to limit her running to the small field or the one behind Baxter School. It makes me angry to think that someone's selfish act of carelessness is going to cost her that freedom.

We could organize a cleanup to get rid of the glass that is up there, but it won't stop people from replacing that glass with more. We could post signs asking people to please take their bottles with them or put them in the trash can but I am not naive enough to think that signs will be much of a deterrent.

It's a beautiful spot that we are so lucky to have for ourselves and our dogs. I only wish there were some way to get people to realize that we are all caretakers of that beauty and that every act of thoughtlessness has a potentially tragic outcome.

An hour later, out she walked, still a bit groggy, whimpering and holding up her paw as if to say, "look what they did to me!" But she had kisses for us and a wagging tail when she saw us. We got our post-op instructions, pain meds and antibiotics, the dreaded "elizabethan collar" to keep her from pulling off the bandaging and made followup appointments. We settled the $335 bill (yikes!) and took her home. It was so sad to see her suffering with her large cast-like bandage. She's like a pirate with a peg-leg.






This birthday was heading south really fast. But, on the vet's suggestion, we decided to go to dinner since she was still pretty out of it and would most likely
sleep for the next few hours. So, with decidedly mixed emotions, off we went.





Fore Street is a magic place. Gourmet Magazine has ranked it #16 in the country for Restaurants of distinction. It is a restaurant that is always crowded but still manages to make each patron feel special. The hostesses were genuinely concerned about Isla's condition and one of them was extremely concerned because she often walks her dog in those same woods. After a very brief wait, we were seated.

We started our dinner with a well-deserved cocktail: a bloody mary for me and Kir Royale for Brendan. As we sipped, the most delicious bread arrived. All of their bread is baked by Standard Baking, the bakery where Brendan works on Sunday mornings. For appetizers we shared two choices: mussels steamed in a rich, garlicky broth (a perfect partner for that great bread) and an amazing tomato tart served on a delicate puff pastry with goat cheese and a delicate sauce. Brendan chose a venison dish for a main course and I had some lamb that was melt-in-my-mouth tender. Fore Street uses wood-fired stoves which give all of their foods a special flavor. We also ordered a side dish of garlicky mashed potatoes which were out of this world, with bits of skin left in them for additional flavor. Brendan ordered a delicious merlot to accompany the dinner. We were unhurried and the service was attentive without being hovering. I was very satisfied after the main course but I had to sample one of their legendary desserts so I picked one of their light ones: a blueberry sorbet. I wasn't prepared for the intensity of flavor. It was like popping a handful of the freshest blueberries from the wild barrens with the slightest hint of lemon. Just amazing!

Isla was never far from our minds throughout dinner, although we had decided that it served no useful purpose to dwell on her pain. We finished up and headed home. When we got there we found her sleeping just inside the back door, waiting for us to come home, resting uncomfortably in her big plastic collar.

It was a rough night. She woke up periodically whimpering and crying out in pain. We gave her a first dose of the painkiller at 5:30AM, along with her first dosage of the antibiotic. Brendan's schedule was lighter than mine today so he called in and stayed with her throughout the day. We broke our steadfast rule about allowing her up on the bed and neither of us regrets the decision, although it means we will never be able to keep her off again.

It will be a long road to her full recovery, assuming that can actually happen. Our immediate concern is that the healing process goes well, allowing her to keep the pad, her foot and ultimately her leg. She had such a rough start to her young life; she deserves so much more than she got yesterday. Please keep her in your prayers. She means the world to us.

What's the deal with shoe fashions?

First off, let me say that I HATE shopping for shoes. I feel a little strange admitting that since many of the women I know use it as therapy... as in "I'm feeling a little down today. I think I'll go shoe shopping." I have always avoided the experience whenever possible. My tendency is to grab and run, finding a servicable pair and getting the hell out of the store as fast as possible. So, when I found a wonderful pair of simple black espadrilles last summer I was in heaven. They went with everything, were comfortable and actually looked very chic on my ugly feet. I could wear them without stockings or socks and my feet could stay relatively cool. They were the next best thing to going barefoot (my real preference in the summer).

Enter Isla, the demon dog. As the human she has bonded to most closely, my essence is her perfume. My shoes become an absolute intoxicant to her canine nose, sending her into a frenzy of delight in my absence. (You know where this is going...) About a month ago I emerged from the shower to discover my wonderful black espadrilles lovingly but thoroughly chewed, rendering them completely unwearable. I realized to my horror that my summer shoe wardrobe had now been reduced to two pairs of sneakers and a single pair of uncomfortable slides. Damn!

I set out to replace the beloved black espadrilles. First stop: the local shoe stores. Here's where things get ugly.

Flip-flops are EVERYWHERE. I haven't felt comfortable in flip-flops since the days of the $3 rubber jobs that came from Woolworths. I am not the most graceful of people and flip-flops are simply an invitation to a face plant. The slapping sound they make drives me crazy and I truly have a couple of the world's ugliest feet so showcasing them is not a pleasant prospect.

The next most frequent style I see is Slides, aptly named because that is exactly what I do when I wear them: slide right out of them, usually in an extremely high-visibility location, such as crossing a busy street in front of high volumes of traffic. Some of them have heel heights that would put me so high I'd risk a nosebleed!

Wandering the aisles of the stores proves an exercise in complete frustration so I beat a hasty retreat home to check out on-line possibilities. A google search using the word "espadrilles" yields a bizarre array of choices, none of which bear ANY resemblance to my beloved simple black fabric zapatos. I see shoes with monster heels, ridiculous frou-frou embroidery and other crap. And everywhere there loom those infernal flip-flops, now re-named thongs. (Aside: I always thought of thongs as underwear with a built-in wedgie. How did they ever become shoes?) And the prices -- Holy Crap! What kind of idiot would pay $356 for a pair of f***ing flip-flops. The world has truly gone mad!

Who decides on these shoe styles anyway? I envision a group of sadistic old men sitting around fashion designer's offices plotting ways for women to throw obscene amounts of money at them for the privilege of looking ridiculous and destroying their feet. Foot doctors around the world are salivating at the prospect of years of surgery for hammer toes and bunions caused by feet jammed into pointy toe shoes. Orthopedic surgeons and chiropractors are planning house expansions and in-ground pools from the revenue supplied by the endless supply of women needing spine and hip re-alignments caused by three inch (and higher) heels.

And then there is the Fugly Factor. Some of these shoes are so ugly I wouldn't even use them to take out a yowling cat in an alley.

Who decided that we choose between wearing skimpy little nothing shoes covered in ridiculous doodads or concrete blocks sure to send us flat on our asses? I want to meet these Shoe Police and bludgeon them to death with a sassy little t-strap equipped with a killer spike heel!

All I need is a simple pair of classic but sturdy espadrilles that I won't need a bank loan to purchase. I promise to lock them away from the canine chewing factory.

Maybe the barefoot option isn't such a bad idea after all.

"My God, What Am I Looking At?" (Gil Grissom - CSI)

It's Thursday! Yippee-yahoo-hurray! Besides being the next-to-last workday of the week, it is the night that I can get a super fix of CSI. Spike TV has its usual weeknight back-to-backer from seven to nine and then at nine there is a brand spankin' new episode on CBS. I am hyperventilating just thinking about the evening ahead. Just me, Grissom, Catherine, Warrick, Hunky Nick, Sarah, Cutie-pie Greg, Doc, some unfortunate DB or two (that's dead body for you uninitiated) and my knitting project du jour. It's a recipe for total contentment.

CSI is not for the squeamish or faint-hearted. Its in-your-face depictions of a bullet penetrating a brain or a heart going into arrythmia could put you off your feed for a bit, but I find it fascinating. It must have something to do with the fact that all of the members of my immediate family (parents and siblings) are either Investigators with the New York State Police (my dad and brother) or nurses (my mom and two sisters). I apparently have a genetic predisposition to medical forensics. But watching it on tv is about as far as I want to take it at this point.

I've seen most of the prior episodes before but every once in a while there is a new one and it's like finding a twenty in my coat pocket or finding my favorite yarn in the bargain bin at my LYS.

The original CSI is still the best, in my opinion. CSI NY is pretty good too, although Stella needs a good slap upside the head every once in a while. The only one I really don't like is CSI Miami. Horatio and his crew are just a little too smug for my liking.

I can sit and knit happily tonight while my CSI buddies are spraying luminol to check for blood, running DNA, processing fibers and getting the bad guys.

CSI + Knitting = Bliss! Let's hear it for escapism TV!

Your other left...

I am left-handed. I am proud of being left-handed. It is something that makes me stand out from the crowd...literally. In elementary school we had a teacher whose idea of physical education was two activities: marching and square-dancing. Both of these activities are physical and social landmine fields for a lefty. Sister Mary Cletus (dubbed Sister "Nikita" Cletus after the rotund, homely dictator of the Evil Empire who was then in power) would summon us to the cafetorium/library which also functioned as our gym. There she would fire up the victrola, a monstrous gray record-player.

Tuesday was marching day. The John Philip Sousa hits just kept on coming and we formed our lines as Sister barked out commands. She usually lost me at "right-left" since I was always on the wrong foot. Things only got worse from there. As the commands continued I inevitably found myself on the other side of the room from my "squad", conspicuously alone and wondering if Sister would notice if I just non-chalantly sashayed back across the room to my rightful place. When the music stopped, things got ugly. After taking a few moments to sufficiently humiliate me, she would "position" me where I was supposed to be and we would proceed, only to face the same situation a few moments later. What was wrong with me? I wasn't a stupid person. I consistently got high grades in all of the other areas. I could wrestle a spelling bee to the ground and emerge victorious everytime. The times tables were a snap. Why couldn't I make my feet move in the right direction?

Fridays were even worse. That was Square Dance day. I would do everything I could think of to convince my mother that I had some life-draining illness and would be unable to go to school. She never bought it. So, off to the cafetorium/library I would trudge, bracing myself for another dose of humiliation. And it always came.

One of Sister's favorite square dances was something called "The Right Hand Star." She would position us in our places, start the music and do her best Caller's impersonation, complete with a "yee-ha" or two. After all, this was supposed to be fun. I'm sure it was for her. The rest of us were miserable, scared to death of screwing up and earning an ear cuff or verbal assault. I felt like a prisoner on death row. I knew the punishment was coming. It was just a matter of when. Sure enough, the inevitable call came.

"Right hands into the center and turn the wheel." That was the right hand star. Everyone else executed it perfectly. I, of course, did it wrong and ended up face to face with the person who was supposed to be behind me in the wheel. I had two choices. Stop the wheel by plowing into the person who was now in front of me or walk backwards and hope futilely that Sister would not notice that my LEFT hand was in the center. It never mattered. The end result was always the same. Another public humiliation.

In third grade, a new opportunity to feel stupid emerged. In honor of our new foray into the wonderful world of cursive writing using the then-popular Palmer method, we traded in our pencils for cartridge pens. These were marvelous inventions with sleek barrels and beautiful shiny points that hid a nasty secret: messy, uncontrollable, smearable blue ink that got all over everything. As a lefty, I soon learned that the only way I could avoid smearing the letters I had just written was to adopt a crab-like curl to my left hand which made my writing effectively illegible. This was all the Sisters of Mercy (who were anything but...) needed to drive my ego into the ground like a tent peg. There was no attempt made to understand the physics of the situation. Rather, Sister Mary Bernardo (the tormentor of that year) called my parents in and told them that unless I was "changed" to a right-handed writer, she would have no choice but to have me repeat third grade. For HANDWRITING????????? Yes, it seems that in the standards of the Albany Diocese, mastering cursive handwriting was as essential an educational component for the successful completion of third grade as spelling, math, and reading comprehension, all subjects for which I was earning straight A's!

My grandmother had been forced to learned to write using her right hand, despite her natural lefty tendencies. She also had a very severe stutter, something my mother was convinced was a direct result of the switch. She was not about to let me become the next Porky Pig of St. Joseph's school so she hatched her own plan. Unfortunately, it would cost me a carefree, no-responsibility summer. She employed a handwriting coach. He was a neighbor, a man who was a public school teacher and left-handed himself. I met with him twice a week to practice my concentric O's and rows of tightly packed I's and he gave me "homework" in between. It paid off. I was allowed to move on to fourth grade. I did so well that next year that Sister Mary Alma suggested to my parents that I skip fifth grade and move directly into sixth. My mother said no, doubtlessly afraid that I would be too young to handle the social nuances of being so much younger than my classmates and she was probably right.

But my left-handedness continued to define and affect me. My mother was a knitter and I desperately wanted to learn. She was right-handed and tried to teach me to knit the way she did. It was a disaster. My stitches were too tight, or twisted, or just not there. I couldn't visualize the process and finally, reluctantly, admitted to myself that, as a lefty, I wouldn't be able to knit.

Years later, when I got married, my husband Brendan wanted me to learn to knit so I could make him a wonderful wool sweater. For the next 25 years I held him off, claiming that my left-handedness rendered me unable to learn to knit. He would ask knitters he met, as well as yarn store owners if there was anyone who could teach me and the answer was always no.

Then, one day I was going through some books in a used book store and came across this:

It was like finding the holy grail. I couldn't believe what I was seeing... the answer to the problem. Everything changed with that discovery. I bought an inexpensive pair of aluminum needles and a skein of acrylic yarn and set out to learn the mysteries of knitting and purling. I learned how to cast on and then just knit and purled my way through the entire skein. Then I ripped it out, rolled it up and started again. All totalled I think I knitted that skein three times before I started to see even stitches and understood the process. I was thrilled.

Best of all, I could do it on my terms, as a left-hander. It felt comfortable and natural. It was like learning to march but doing it the way I wanted to and still ending up with the rest of the squad. It was like square dancing the left-hand star and not bumping into all of those right-hand star people. I was thoroughly and irreversibly hooked. I now knew how to knit and no one could take that away from me! I was 51 years old and I felt like a kindergardener who had just figured out how to tie her shoes!!!

I started knitting in 2003 and haven't stopped since! What a wonderful journey the process has been. And all because of a little 64 page book that found me in an out of the way used book store. It is out of print now, unfortunately, but it does occasionally surface on half.com and ebay. I also saw a copy at a Knitter's conference at a swap session. The Author is Regina Hurlburt and the ISBN is 0-442-23585-2.