"only the things I didn’t do crackle after the blazing dies"

There are sounds one expects to hear from one's household appliances.

*ZOT* and *SNACKLE* are not among them. Especially when the appliance in question is a microwave oven. Especially when those sounds are accompanied by a light show. And especially when all one has done is put a pat of butter in aforesaid microwave in an attempt to soften it slightly.

I really hope this isn't the opening scene in a sequel to last year's performance of 'Bolstering the Market in Durable Goods,' an historical tragicomedy in three acts.

Naomi Shihab Nye

Where Sleeping Dogs Lie

I'm sure I've grumbled before about the jet lag-like effect of the biannual time change, or if I haven't, you can probably fill in the blanks.

(Not) Getting Stuff Done

The problem with long weekends is they give you inflated ideas of how much you can actually get done. Maybe not major home improvement projects, but, you know, stuff. Like laundry and gardening, or housework, or breaking down that pile of cardboard boxes that has piled up because you never go to stores anymore, you just order things from Amazon and Zappos, and curbside recycling is Tuesday and won't that be a good time to get it all out?

Hurrah

Yesterday did turn out to be New Fridge Day.

And it was festive.

Feria glacei

Tomorrow is New Refrigerator Day. Or at least, it is supposed to be. I know better than to count my Maytags before they are delivered.

A year or so (or longer?) ago, I was doing some reading on religious practices in Roman and pre-Roman Gaul, trying to catch up on current scholarship on the Coligny Calendar. It's all muddy waters, of course, but I came away with the sense that the indeterminacy was almost the point.¹ Everything was potentially a moveable feast, depending on when the full moon came after the equinox, or when the hawthorn trees bloomed, or whether it happened to rain and therefore the bonfires couldn't be lit.

I think I'm prepared, philosophically at least, for New Refrigerator Day to be rescheduled due to forces beyond my control.

But if it takes a month to get the fridge, the way it did with the water softener, you can bet I'm going to get something more than philosophical on someone's backside.

¹Actually, that seems to be a theme in my researches -- I remember giving a paper at a conference once where Paul Strohm was in the audience. When I was finished reading, he raised his hand to ask a question, and I felt a flash of terror, but his only comment was 'it's all about indeterminacy, isn't it?' And, in fact, it really was, so I could agree with him and then, somehow, I was off the hook.

I got yer single spies right here

The latest casualty is the refrigerator.

Yes, I've bought a new one. No, it doesn't get delivered until next week.

Yes, we lost a lot of food. No, I don't know how I'm going to cope for a week without a refrigerator. I know people did it for millennia, but they also had things like root cellars and spring houses. I don't have those, and it is the middle of July.

I am trying to focus on positive things, like how great the new fridge will be (it will be great, shiny new Maytag, freezer on the bottom so no more roasts falling out and landing on my feet, better shelf arrangement, etc etc).

On the other hand, I feel like I'm going to be in hock for the rest of my life just as a result of the last month. That's three major appliances since late June -- the water softener follies were chronicled here, and the dryer also gave out. The dryer was not a drama, though, so I don't think I mentioned it. Go to Sears, pick out new dryer, have dryer delivered next business day, life goes on.

And now this.

I don't want to hear one word from anyone about how the sales of durable goods have been dropping. I have done my part, people. Enough already!

Fontanalia

... youths,
Each with his maid, before the sun was up,
By annual custom, issuing forth in troops,
To drink the waters of some sainted well,
And hang it round with garlands ...

-- Wordsworth (The Prelude, Book 8)

Yes, oh glory, it did happen. There is a new water softener installed and running, and it is safe to drink the waters of our well (and wash white things) again.

The Score So Far

Murphy 3, Water Softener 0.

Despite giving me his sacred word of honour that he'd be there before noon on Friday to install the softener, the plumber did not do so. At 12:30 I called.

A random guy at the office informed me that today's call had been cancelled due to the need to order a part which would not arrive until Monday. Would I like to reschedule then?

Why no. No, I would not like to take another day off work to wait around for some idiot who apparently cannot visit the local Home Depot to get a part and cannot phone to tell me there is a problem.

You can probably imagine the tenor of the rest of that conversation and the subsequent one I had with Sears' customer service about their choice of contractor.

Round 4 is schedule for this Saturday. Bets?

Never Easy

Out here in Cape Despair, we homeowners are on well systems rather than on muncipal water. There is occasional talk about getting the neighbourhood onto the public water system, but so far, this is only talk. Furthermore, the local water supply has an astonishing mineral content. Under these circumstances the widespread use of whole-house water softeners should not be surprising.

I love it when a plan comes together

I got everything I mentioned in my last post done this weekend.

Really.

Yuck

In the Blackadder episode 'The Queen of Spain's Beard,' Harry greets a visiting princess with the charming words, 'Welcome to our castle. I hope you will find the drains to your satisfaction.'

I would hope that after the amount of time and money I spent yesterday on professional help for the drains at nostre chastel sur Magothie, they would be satisfactory both to princesses and lesser folk as well.

We thought we had a clog in the line that drains the dishwasher and washing machine. And so we did. We also had a clog in the sewer line, which had not yet started causing problems but likely would have soon.

Correcting these two things required a great deal of noise and mess, and a departure to fetch a larger machine and a second man to help with the sewer line.

The whole business was entirely nasty and shockingly expensive. At least the day was warm enough I was able to open some windows, which helped keep the nastiness from becoming overpowering.

Whilst I tried to stay out of the way of the plumbers, and tried not to dwell on the noise, mess, and nastiness of the work they were doing, I pulled out miscellaneous scraps of old sock yarn and took a crack at some knitted Easter eggs.

Like popcorn, people. Like popcorn. I couldn't stop knitting them. The only thing wrong with them is that my taste in socks is not entirely correct for Easter eggs (too much black and grey for one thing). But a very little yarn goes a very long way with these, so a very small order to Knitpicks should correct the troubles with my palette. If you are a happy colours knitter, you probably have enough odd scraps of fingering weight yarn to make a dozen or more.

No pictures of my little clutch yet; I am hoping to make sufficient (and sufficiently personalised) quantities to distribute as gifts. I'll try to pile them into a basket for photos before I give them all away.

Purged

After yesterday's splenetic purge I'm feeling much better now, thank you.

We really did have a nice weekend. I got quite a bit of good housework done Saturday, was able to be lazy Sunday, and was even able to potter about the garden a bit on Monday.

It was not a perfect job at everything, other than the lazing about on Sunday (a thing at which I am extraordinarily good). I still need to mop the bathroom floor, for example. But it was pretty good.

Garden pottering was limited to pruning the rosebushes and pulling leaves out of the pond (again) because it's still only February. While doing that I noticed that the sassafras tree in the corner of the yard was quite literally about to fall down.

Here's a chunk of the affected area, near the base of the trunk. Something chewed it from the inside out -- see the emergence holes?



It was not a very large tree, and the Viking has some experience in treeherding. We managed to get it down, by ourselves, with no damage to ourselves or our house, and before it fell on the neighbour's car (or the neighbour).

Also we managed to get it down without stomping the hellebores (just now starting to bloom), the azaleas, or the sweet box I put in last year too badly. The Viking understands something about treeherding, but he has a bad habit of putting his feet exactly in the middle of ornamental plants, even when there is no reason to do so.

Since I have something of a professional interest in treemunching insects, I have been trying to figure out what ate my tree. The Forest Service silvics manual lists two wood-boring insects that attack sassafras, the sassafras borer (Oberea ruficollis [Fabricius]) and a wood-boring weevil (Apteromechus ferratus). The damage on my tree isn't consistent with the sassafras borer, but I can't find anything else about the weevil other than it's one of the family Curculionidae (snout weevils), along with about 7,000 other species. That doesn't really tell me much.

There is also a non-native ambrosia beetle (Xyleborus glabratus), which is known to attack sassafras and redbay trees, and spread the fungus which causes Laurel Wilt Disease. However the damage isn't consistent with what I understand of Laurel Wilt damage, and my other sassafras trees are OK (I went looking for similar damage and didn't see it), so I don't think I need to call the state department of agriculture in a panic just yet.

The good news is nothing else in the yard seems to have been chomped, it doesn't seem to be the work of a quarantine pest, and starting about a foot above the section which was damaged and rotted, the tree was sound enough. The Viking is going to cut it down to size to use in his smoker.

The Rising Price of Slow

Beware, poppets. The slow-foodists are expanding into home decor.

Red Queen, White Queen, Alice, and me

On the one hand, I got a lot done this weekend.

Laundry. Dishes. Meals cooked. Groceries bought. Comforters aired. A rosebush and dozen or so irises transplanted. Some Halloween decorations put into place. Lemon tree brought in from outside (bearing a respectable load of lemons for its size).

On the other ...

Featherbed not aired, nor sheets changed. Dishes done barely touch the chaos in the kitchen (the Viking was moved to start a batch of pumpkin beer this weekend, which meant that the chaos level in the kitchen was increased). Kitchen floor not mopped. There is a bowl of pumpkin guts next the sink that needs the seeds separated out and toasted.

There's also another pumpkin to be butchered and something close to a peck of apples to be dealt with. My plan for the apples is to make up pies and put them in the freezer. I have no plan for the pumpkin yet; it was leftover from the great brewing endeavour.

In short, it's taking all the running I can do just to stay in the same place, and I think I may not even be succeeding at that.

At least I look like a model of productivity at work -- the OGC cleared 10 things last week, and 5 of them were mine. Yay?

(Yes, I am aware of the topsy-turviness of being more bothered by the disarray in my kitchen than pleased by my professional successes. It's completely irrational, I know, but right now, I'd just really like a clean kitchen. Can I blame this on the fact that the Viking has been watching the scary you're-not-tidy-enough ladies on BBC America?)

Intimations of Mortality

One day I will learn not to get comfortable. Getting comfortable seems to be a signal to the universe that there are applecarts that need upsetting.

So it is that what should have been a lovely day off in the mountains of western Maryland with the Viking and Maman, and Sis, the Engineer, and the Wee Boy, was framed by, on the one side, the message that a friend of Maman's (no longer young, with no children of her own, and with apparently a well-founded mistrust in her remaining family's ability to cherish certain family heirlooms) is divesting herself of some cherished family heirlooms and desires to give me a clock. The clock in question is a tall case clock (aka a grandfather clock) which, she tells Maman, was made in Scotland sometime during the 19th C, and which marks the hour of twelve with a depiction of Mary Queen of Scots being decapitated.

I haven't seen the clock in question yet -- the desire to give it to me was communicated first to Maman, who conveyed it to me -- but it sounds like the sort of charmingly awful Victorian morbidity which has always amused me, and anyway, I can't very well say 'no thank you' under the circumstances. On the other hand, I am going to have to find space on the floor for it, and the deities alone know where I'll find that.

The Viking suggested downstairs somewhere, as he is a light sleeper and likely to be disturbed by chiming clocks (though not his own snoring, despite the fact that the barest whistle of my own schnoz disrupts his slumber. One evening he woke me up 4 or 5 times because he thought I was snoring. By the last time, I was sufficiently annoyed that I didn't go back to sleep instantly, so when he shook me again I was able to shout, in righteous indignation, that I was not asleep and not snoring. The source of the 'respiratory roughness' that had so offended his delicate ear? Was Maeve, curled up on his feet).

I am sort of opposed to downstairs, because downstairs is more prone to damp, which is not perhaps the best thing for an elderly clock. I know some old clocks of this kind have the chime running on a different weight from the works, so it may be possible to run the clock without running the chime. Assuming, of course, that the poor clock accepts its transfer to a new location -- I've had bad experiences with trying to move old clocks and then get them running right again.

And now I am hopelessly off track. See, the plan for this weekend was 'annual trip to western Maryland to visit orchards, buy apples and pumpkins, and have a picnic and walk in the woods at Catoctin Mountain Park.' The pleasant trip became framed by 'aging family friend wants to give you family heirloom' on the front side, and, on the rear, a double shot of news: An elderly family friend (a friend and contemporary of my grandmother's, in fact) had passed away, and the Avuncular One was hospitalised following a stroke.

The good news, so far, seems to be that my uncle sought treatment promptly and the damage from the stroke doesn't seem to be severe, so he has a good chance of a strong recovery.

The 'visitation' for my grandmother's friend is tonight. After that, I should really try to figure out where I could put a clock.

Have you really saved daylight

... if you're napping in the daytime?

Making the switch to daylight saving time is like having jetlag without the interest of having actually gone anywhere. Changing time does make me take down the various battery-powered wall clocks and dust them. Still, I'd rather have the hour's sleep.

This weekend was still mostly about spring cleaning -- in addition to dusting clocks, I took down curtains and washed them, and aired feather bedding. Not quite as labour-intensive as last week, but stuff that needed to be done. Next week I will tackle either the bedroom or the sewing room. Haven't decided which yet, but since my urge to sew is rising, the sewing room may be the winner.

Friday night, the Viking took me to the opening party for Homestead's flower show. It was nice, though there wasn't much this year that really made me squeal. Part of the problem, I think, was that the theme is 'Monopoly,' because I have no desire to plant my garden like a board game, and that the theme worked into the displays mostly with painted 'Go Directly to Jail' squares on the paving and random 'Oriental Avenue' signs hanging over the primroses. It was good to look at flowers, though, and one of the displays actually did more or less what I had planned to do with part of our yard this year, so I was able to point at it and say 'look! this is what I was talking about!' which is always good when discussing landscaping with the Viking.

Going to the party with my invitation scored me a free pot of rather garish primroses:



Since my luck with primroses is about the same as my luck with poinsettias -- enjoy them while they last, but don't try to make a long-term investment of them -- I suppose it doesn't matter too much if I don't love the colour.

I do however love the colour of these little blue bellflowers:

Enough already

Last Friday, I was thinking that I was done with winter.

I pride myself on taking time to enjoy the seasons as they happen and not whining unduly about seasonally-appropriate weather (ok, I do complain about the heat in August, but I am genetically wired for cold climates, and I try to keep the grousing to a minimum). I have even, on a couple of occasions, been a little sad to see a season go. Wait! I wasn't done with you yet!

But I am done with winter. I am ready to open my windows and smell warming earth and green things shooting up through it. I want to eat foods that taste like they grew in the sunshine. I need to see flowers.

Saturday, we were almost there. There were crocuses in the front yard. It was warm enough to open the windows. The cats pressed against the screen door, fluffed, watching for birds. The Viking and I made progress in the continued reorganisation of the house, this time working on his Den of Iniquity (what others might call a rec room). We sent off a load off no-longer-serviceable furniture to the dump with assistances of Maman's odd-job man. Spring cleaning, we said.

Yesterday, we went to IKEA after work to get a new computer desk for the Viking. I like going to IKEA. It makes me feel better to know that there is a place full of cleanly designed blonde wood furniture and limitless supplies of lingonberries. Also the bike rack by the entrance makes me laugh -- ja sure, I'll just pedal down Route 1 with my flatpack Billy bookcase on my bicycle. What were they thinking?

We picked out a desk. The seasonal merchandise moving in is lawn furniture and patio umbrellas, and picnic table necessities like screened domes to keep flies out of the potato salad. We looked at a tableau of folding chairs with orange-and-white floral cushions with a small table for drinks between them, shaded by one of the larger umbrellas.

Summer vacation, the Viking said. We should look at see what's going on down at the ocean, maybe plan a long weekend sometime soon.

This morning, there was snow on my windshield. I am not amused.

Pass the Tissues

Came down with a spectacular cold over the weekend. What started as a scratchy throat progressed through "Kathleen Turner after a weeklong bender on Jack and Camels" and ended with me spending my last lovely federal holiday for months coughing and snorting.

Fortunately (?) I was still only in the scratchy throat stage when Maman helped me carry out a concerted reorganisation of my living and dining spaces. Those spaces have now traded positions, more or less. Some large things (sideboards, china cabinets) are where they always were, but the sitting and eating areas have shifted. There's not less furniture, nor did we manage to magically shrink the furniture there is, but I think the new arrangement makes better use of the space, in the sense that I think we'll actually be able to use the space now. As it was there wasn't much in the way of eating or sitting or anything else going on upstairs. It's better now. As a bonus, Maeve likes being able to lounge on the loveseat and be able to see out the sliding doors at the same time.

Didn't do much knitting, obviously. I had some hopes of maybe possibly finishing Girly Bag, but felt too lousy to do anything with it. I did take a good long look at the new Interweave Knits (which miraculously arrived at my house BEFORE the newstand release date). Most of the things I thought I would like I do, the stuff I thought I wouldn't, I don't, and the stuff I was meh about was settled one way or the other. Seeing the detail means I can see I like and may possibly knit Clementine, but will not get too worked up about the Dollar and a Half cardi.

I am not 100% wild about the new layout, largely because having the big photos of the designs in the middle of the magazine and the patterns further back annoys me (though the new IK layout is far less annoying than some other knitting magazines in that regard -- at least IK stuck with regular font and column sizes in the pattern section). The thing that really annoyed me most was something that, in retrospect, has annoyed me about IK in the past, too, namely bad layout decisions, like long jumps (breaking an article mid paragraph on page 12 and requiring the reader to find the cut on page 121 was the sort of thing my undergraduate journalism teacher would have beaten me for) or weird photo and ad placements. Full page ads facing pattern pages (especially when the pattern ran over one page, so you had to turn the page to get to the rest of the pattern also bugged me. I know a lot of people photocopy the pattern pages so they don't have to tote the magazine around while they're knitting, but still. It's distracting when you're actually looking at the magazine.

I'm also a little worried that IK's apparent love affair with Wenlan Chia, the new models (what did Interweave Girl do to deserve being cast aside?), and some of the other little details, are symptomatic of a trend toward more couture-y and less wearable (and more narrowly sized) items. I'm not feeling particularly alarmist -- the sizes on the projects in this issue are reasonable, and there was the pattern and the feature piece on Joan McGowan-Michael, who's always sized to accomodate a wide range of women -- but still, it makes me twitchy. Especially after reading the comments on Wenlan Chia's book over at Moth Heaven. She doesn't size larger than a 33" chest? Allowing that there are some women who are healthily and naturally that size, still ... how many of them are there? I grant you that I am now somewhat more zaftig than I perhaps ought to be, but even so, I think the last time I had a 33" chest, I was about 11 or 12, and I remained a pretty reasonable weight throughout my teens and 20s.

(I found some pictures from while I was an undergrad during the rearrangement. I was cute. And skinny. I had no idea).

Actually, I confess I don't wholly understand the fascination with Wenlan Chia, full stop. It's not like she's the first couture designer to show knits. Alexander MacQueen has shown sweaters (and quite elaborately cabled ones, too) in the past, for example. Giles Deacon's Fall 2007 collection features ... superchunky ... knits, for instance (conceivably these were even handknit, but I don't know. Deacon's collection also features a lot of feathers, though I don't see the cochin chicken look transferring well to the street). I haven't seen any of the knitting magazines going ga-ga over that. On the other hand, Alexander MacQueen isn't trying to sell a book of knitting patterns. (Though if he were, I know some people who'd be all over it).

And I don't buy the 'push yourself as a knitter and adapt it to fit you' argument either (someone commenting at Moth Heaven suggested that, rantily, and I didn't buy it when the same argument was made in an issue of Vogue Knitting a couple years ago in the context of a 'praise to the creative knitter' piece, either). If I'm going to drop the cash for a book or a magazine, I want to be buying something I can use, right there, as written. To do the amount of work I would have to do to make a pattern sized for a 33" chest fit me, I might as well write my own pattern. And if I'm writing my own pattern, why do I need to buy hers? It's just business. You want to sell a product, then sell a product people are going to need or want to buy. I don't need to buy a book of sweater patterns, and I don't want to buy a book of patterns that I will have to rewrite, from scratch, to make garments I can wear. Especially not a book that costs in excess of $30.